


Mo Chridhe Will Go On

by CourageousJS



Category: Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon, Titanic (1997)
Genre: Angst, Eventual Smut, F/M, First Love, Forbidden Love, Outlander crossover, Titanic Crossover, jamie x claire
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-30
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-16 00:21:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 20
Words: 41,928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29073228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CourageousJS/pseuds/CourageousJS
Summary: This was 100% and purely inspired by a conversation I had with CrosswordDreamer on tumblr. We cackled and threw around the mock titles of "Paint Me Like One Of Your French Lassies" but ultimately, this won out. Get ready to get your heart broken all over again by the delightful romp aboard the Titanic with some very familiar Scottish characters!Photo credit of Claire as Rose done by preciouslittleingenue who is amazing! Thanks for letting me use this.I'm on Twitter and Tumblr by the same name (CourageousJS) so feel free to add me! Let's get on board this fun ship together for a totally self-indulgent time.
Relationships: Claire Beauchamp/Frank Randall, Claire Beauchamp/Jamie Fraser, Claire Beauchamp/Julia Beauchamp
Comments: 261
Kudos: 156





	1. The Ship of Dreams Part 1

Wednesday, April 10th 1912 

Claire Elizabeth Beauchamp exited the white spotless motorcar, reaching out to hold the hand of her Fiancé, Frank Randall. At age seventeen, she didn’t quite know why she was dressed to the nines to depart Southampton that day. It was just a ship, wasn’t it? Did it matter? 

It was a vehicle meant to be a pretty cage, to propel her towards a life she did not entirely want. A life with Frank. 

“I don’t see what all the fuss is about,” she said simply, holding her enormous purple hat out of her eyes to look around at the crowds gathered to wish them well on their voyage. “It doesn’t look any bigger than the Mauretania.” 

“God, Claire. You can be so bland about these things, but you're wrong about this ship.” Frank chastised her abruptly, his top hat tightly over his well-manicured brown hair and his deep chestnut eyes gleaming up at the tall smokestacks above them on the dock. 

“It’s easily 100 feet longer.” 

_100 feet of boring bullshit_

Julia Beauchamp would drop dead if she heard her daughter talk that way. As Claire breathed the Southampton smog in deeply, she didn’t even notice the noise or the bustle as she walked slowly towards the vessel that would secure her future in as the great Mrs. Frank Randall, a member of the newest great American dynasty. 

At 29, Frank was no stranger to voyages and yet… on this one, he was as excited as a child on Christmas. One who did not get the appropriate gift. Claire noticed him fussing at the servants on the way out the door. 

She tried turning a blind eye to his social indiscretions but as her mother dictated, it was just how American aristocracy was. Claire would learn to deal. It was expected. From a young age, Claire had been primed and primped for a young gentleman to take one look and say, "She's mine now. No worries Mother and Father, you won't have to deal with this burden anymore." Claire couldn't work, couldn't go to college but finishing school? Ah, yes. To sit straight up with a ramrod up your back and be taught French and Latin and how to be a proper show wife for a suitable bachelor. Now that was the epitome of womanhood and Claire had achieved it. 

Soon she would be just another pretty jewel in Frank Randall's safe that three men had to wheel on board behind them. 

Claire marched on towards the ship and snorted lightly to herself at the grand vessel’s nickname. 

_Ship of dreams, huh._

This was turning into her nightmare. 

......................................................

So what do we think? Fun? Yes. Unnecessary? Also yes. Crucial to my own self-care during COVID19? Abso-fuckin-lutely. Onto Part 2 where we meet our "Jack" Le sigh.....


	2. The Ship of Dreams Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Why take anyone else, when you can take a Murtagh?

“Wheesht lad, ye’ve bet everything we had.” Murtagh Fitzgibbons hissed low as he shuffled about uneasily in his seat in the little bar right outside the docks. 

A little, dark-haired weasel of a man, Murtagh looked in disgust at his best friend and godson, James Fraser. 

Jamie, as he was known, was the exact opposite of everything his own father, long gone, Brian Fraser, wanted him to be. A cigarette hung from his rosy lips as he took it out and licked them to put on a brave face. 

The lad’s keen blue eyes cut through the scar-ridden Swedes opposite them. 

“When ye’ve got nothing ye cannae lose.” 

Murtagh rolled his eyes and shot daggers at the boy, only seventeen and a right upstart. He’d been giving him the chase all across France living out his dreams as an artist. Murtagh wanted nothing more but to go back to Leoch in peace but he had made Ellen Fraser a promise to look after her son. After all, it was the least he could do for the only woman he’d ever loved. 

Jamie had Ellen’s eyes and even now they were calculating and sizing up their opponents. A key, some coins and a matchbox lay on the table in front of them, even the little wooden snake he had carried since he was a lad. The Swedes? Well, Jamie had talked a big game and the larger one couldn’t resist slamming down two tickets to board the Titanic on the table. 

A crowd of onlookers gathered around and Jamie was eating it up. The cocky bastard slowly took the cigarette out of his mouth to think as he carefully picked up the next card to make a full hand. Murtagh did likewise, so did the Swedes. 

“Moment of truth, lads.” Jamie smirked, but under it all Murtagh could see the pallor of a bluff on his face. 

“Murtagh.” 

The older man exhaled and splayed his hand on the table, “I ken ye were daft to do it, lad. I’ve nothing.” 

“Olaf.” 

Jamie nodded sternly towards the smaller of the two opponents. 

He shook his head as he lay his cards on the table. 

“Nothing. Sven?” 

The larger Swede growled low as he played his hand. That should teach this little upstart. 

“Jesus.” Murtagh groaned. 

“Uh oh, two pair….” Jamie hissed in between his teeth, his eyes going from his godfather to the men and back again. 

The small group of spectators groaned as well. This cocky young man had bewitched them all and for what? 

“I have some bad news for ye, Murtagh….” 

“What could be worse than losing our entire savings for some-” 

Jamie didn’t let him finish. 

“Looks like we won’t be headed back to Leoch for some time.” 

The lad’s tanned fingers lay his hand on the table for all to see. 

“Cause we’re going to America!” 

The crowd erupted and Jamie jolted around whooping at the top of his lungs, “Full house, lads!” 

The Swedes groaned and started fighting amongst themselves while Jamie stood up and shouted in joy. 

“Now the _Titanic_ is going to America ye dumbarse, it leaves in five minutes how d’ye ken we’d…..” 

Murtagh didn’t have time to finish the statement before he was ripped up by his coat collar and shoved out the door ahead of Jamie who had eagerly stuffed their coins and his wooden snake back into his knapsack and was out the door. 

“Plenty of time, better get going, Daddy-O!” 

“Dinnae call me that, I told ye before!” 

“I’m sorry, _GOD_ -father. We’re off to see the world!” 

Murtagh ran as far as his legs would take him after the lad with the newsboys hat shoved roughly over his auburn curls. He would take the Lord’s name in vain instead. 

The two men ran up the gangplank and made a flying leap onto the desk, tickets in hand. 

And just like that, Jamie Fraser had changed the whole trajectory of his life. His and so many others. 

...............................................................................

Murtagh like ..... I chased his little arse all across Europe for THIS?! 


	3. Trouble on Deck

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I don't like anticipating my face in a red flush 
> 
> -Taylor Swift, an intellectual 
> 
> Ahahsjdkasldk me want go there! 
> 
> -Me, upon seeing someone beautiful

The Titanic set sail from Southampton at noon, I stayed in my cabin in lieu of going out to wish a bunch of strangers I didn’t particularly care about goodbye. Everyone was making such a god-awful scene acting like the maiden voyage of this ship was the be-all end-all of life as we knew it. Sure, it was fast but nothing impressed me about it. Nothing impressed me anymore. I was quickly sinking into a black hole of depression and couldn't find my way out. The shackles of my upcoming nuptials were slowly pulling me under the quicksand of responsibility. 

First class was exquisite but I saw none of it. I looked, but I did not see the tinkling chandeliers, ornately carved cabins or private promenade decks. I saw a cage. A beautiful cage meant to keep me in my place. 

I spent the afternoon hanging pictures I had picked up in Paris around my personal suite. Desperate to change the appearance of what would be my prison cell for the next five days, if we matched the Olympic’s record for crossing the Atlantic. 

“Dear God, what is that awful thing, darling?” Frank balanced a glass of champagne on his thin fingers and looked at the gigantic painting in my hands. 

“I don’t know…” I cocked my head to look at the shapes and faces popping out of different angels on the canvas, “but I like it. Reminds me of a dream." 

“Move the safe into the wardrobe,” Frank ordered the men busy bringing in our suitcases. 

I noted he talked to them the same way he talked to me, with indifference. 

“The difference between Frank’s taste in art and mine is that I have some.” I said off-handedly to the maid that would be serving me on the voyage, Andreea, she was Romanian with warm brown chocolate eyes and I smiled at her. She bit back a smile and we momentarily bonded over our shared displeasure at my fiancé. 

Frank heard this and scoffed. 

“This street artist, Picasso-something won’t amount to a thing. He won’t, trust me,” Frank continued, “at least they were cheap.” 

I could tell Frank was bothered by the fact that I covered up the brand new cabin with street art, but I didn’t care. The gilded cherry woodwork of the cabin now became my own sanctuary and I was surrounded by distractions so as not to ponder my own fate. 

If it annoyed him, all the better. If I was unappreciative, it was only because he didn’t understand or appreciate _me_. 

……………………………………………………………………..

  
  


At Cherbourg, a woman came aboard named Glenna FitzGibbons. We all called her Mrs. Fitz. Her husband struck gold out West and Mother called her “new money”. 

The next afternoon, we steamed out from west Ireland out into the wide, blue Atlantic. Nothing ahead of us but hundreds of miles of water and, on the other side, New York City. 

  
  


…………………………………………………………………………

  
  


We took luncheon on one of the private decks, Frank arranged for not only Mrs. Fitz to be there but also two of the minds behind such a great ship. Colum MacKenzie and Ian Murray, who were animatedly filling in Frank and my mother on the finer details of the design. 

I only tuned into half of what they were saying, I was busy taking in the educated and opinionated Mrs. Fitz sitting across from me. 

“....and our master designer, Mr. Murray built her from the steel plates up.” Column stated as the small gathering hung on his every word. Well, everyone but me. 

“I may have knocked it together, but the idea was all Mr. MacKenzie’s doing. He envisioned a ship so grand it would be nigh unsinkable. And here she is.” Ian was a young thirty something with kind eyes and a Scottish accent.

I smiled dully at him, at least he was trying to be nice and not at all pompous unlike Column. 

A waiter came round to take our orders and Frank lifted a finger to call attention to the fact he was indeed with me, and yes we would be ordering together. 

Without consulting me at all, he raised his voice, “I’ll have the lamb leg….rare… light on the mint sauce and the same for the lady, if you please.” 

I hated lamb. 

My slight nose wrinkle amused Mrs. Fitz who immediately picked up on Frank’s domineering nature. 

“You gonna cut her meat for her, too, there Frank?” She chuckled in a low voice but her eyes were searching as she read my face like a book. 

Her light brogue told of an early life in Scotland but I could tell she had lived a long time abroad as well. She had wrinkles and freckles and looked like she lived a life in the sun, instead of locked away in the shade like my own mother. I had known her all of one day and already I was wishing Mrs. Fitz could take me under her wing. 

Frank wasn’t used to being called out on his control of me, I saw him grip the armrest of his chair a little tighter. 

“And who came up with the name, Titanic?” Mrs. Fitz was sensible enough to change the topic, “Was it you, Mr. MacKenzie?” 

“Aye, you see, we wanted to convey the sheer size of the ship. Size means stability, luxury and strength…” 

I interrupted. 

“Do you know of a certain Dr. Freud, Mr. MacKenzie? His ideas on the male obsession with objects of size may be of some interest to you….” 

Mr. Murray choked on his glass of water and my mother’s hands closed tightly around my leg under the table. In a moment, I felt like a child of five years old ready to get the switch. 

“What has come over you, my darling.” 

Mother’s voice was low and tight in my ear as she tried laughing it off uncomfortably for the gentlemen. 

Frank threw his napkin on the table in dismay and thinly veiled anger. 

“Excuse me, I do need some fresh air…” I pushed my chair back from the table and all but ran from the room, relieved but also ashamed of bringing my mother pain. 

I loved her in the way all daughters do, but I was tired. So tired. And scared. Surrounded by people, I felt alone. 

Walking out onto the deck, the brisk sea air filled my lungs and I felt more relaxed just being in the cool, April sunshine. I ran to the railing and felt a tendril or two escape my tightly coiffed head and fly out as if to take off on its own, away from here. I wish I could follow it. 

I closed my eyes and rested my hands in front of me on the cold deck railing, letting the sun touch my face without a hat, without an umbrella. I hoped I would brown up and shrivel like a raisin. Maybe on my wedding day I would look so unsightly they would call it all off until I had returned to my normal milk-white skin tone. It was a plan I could get behind. A loud bark broke my reverie from below and I looked down for the first time. 

I saw with some amusement and horror that the first class dogs were being walked down below to shit and piss and generally make those around aware of their place aboard the ship and in life. Classic aristocracy. Some second and third class passengers were milling about sharing beer bottles and playing folksongs, children played and squealed in delight in a game of tag. 

I caught a glimpse of a streak of auburn red and turned my gaze slightly to the left. A boy was sitting there, next to a thin, dark-haired man who had his back to me and it looked like they were deep in conversation that was only broken by his stare up to where I was standing. I would have called him a boy, except he was like me….bordering adulthood all too swiftly. He dropped his arm off the railing he was leaning on and gazed up crossing the distance between us with his clear sight. He wasn’t a boy, this was a man. The sure movement of his massive shoulders spoke to me of a life full of work. Maybe a farm hand? Regardless, I was distracted by the look of his broad chest underneath the suspenders and slightly dirty cream shirt that was pulled tight as he looked up at me with reckless abandon. 

I couldn't move, I felt glued to the spot staring back down at him. I could make out his clear blue eyes under his tweed brown cap staring back into mine. Even from that distance I saw they were an unusually bright shade and reflected bits of the ocean tossing and churning behind him off the port bow. I darted my eyes away and felt a red flush creep up my neck like a strand of ivy growing and curling upwards to find the sun kissing my forehead. 

I was engaged to another man, what was I doing. A third class passenger, no less? Claire, get it together. You will never ever meet this man, much less talk to him. He might’ve been worlds away as far as I was concerned. 

I chanced another look. He was still looking at me, taking a step towards my direction, his eyes never moving from my face. I gulped and felt my heart quicken and my mouth dry up as though full of cotton. 

A bit audacious for him and yet... I couldn't look away either. We were caught in a locked gaze of forbidden curiosity for the other. 

I swallowed again, my tongue feeling swollen and dry as it pressed against the roof of my mouth and I surveyed his form in detail. Compared to Frank’s small, thin body, this man was Michelangelo’s David. Easily over six feet tall, he towered over the thin man beside him and those around him. I'd never seen so much... _man_... in my entire life. As broad as he was tall, he was proportioned well. He had his cream shirt rolled up at the sleeves and I noted the size and shape of his forearms, now hanging limp at his sides. I wondered what it would feel like to have them wrapped around my waist in just the right way. What color was the stubble on his square jaw up close? Would it glint with traces of gold in the sunlight? His ears stuck out just a little bit, his amber hair curled and caressed his chiseled cheek and I desperately wanted to brush my lips against it and trace the lines on his face down into the cleft in his strong chin. The slight blush to his full lips was welcoming and I wondered what it would be like to love them. 

What must it be like to grow up that beautiful? 

A hand grabbed my arm and pulled me backwards roughly. I jumped. 

“I can’t believe you, _do not_ embarrass me or your mother again, Claire! Do you hear me?” 

Frank’s brown eyes were livid and burning into me with concealed hatred. 

“I hear you,” I bit my words at him, “kindly keep your hands to yourself, Frank.” 

I meant that in more ways than one. Although engaged, we had barely touched, hardly even kissed except at my parents bidding at our engagement party. Even then it was cold and peckish. I had never been kissed before and it was my first. 

I had known it was a marriage of business and yet… I _hoped_ he had loved me. That kiss told me all I needed to know. Frank Randall felt nothing for me but ownership and desire to control someone else. I was his, he was not allowed to be mine. I was used to men going and doing as they will and belonging to no one. 

And yet… 

I turned to follow Frank inside again, glancing over my shoulder to the young man on the landing of the third class deck. Imprinting on my memory the face of a handsome stranger I would never get to see again. His eyes never left mine and as I walked away, I smiled a little at the warmth spreading over my face that had nothing to do with the April sunshine. 

A stranger, a total stranger made me blush. Not only that, but I had imagined his arms around me and wanted to feel his touch on my skin. The cold breeze off the ocean whipped past my cheek and I felt alive again. He had woken up something inside me that I didn't know I had. A desire to know and be known by another. 

Jesus, Claire. 

Whatever _has_ come over you? 

...................................................

Claire: 

Can we blame her? 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks to my writing sister, CrosswordDreamer, for being my Beta on the level of we-don't-proofread and "we die as men" when we hit the post button XD   
>  Shoutout to Robinshill on the character ideas for this crossover!


	4. King of the World

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One April day...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For all practical reasons, JAAMF is not seasick in this fic. :) That would have been miserable.

“Even the rats have flea wi’ servants.” 

Murtagh dusted himself off grumpily, standing in front of the bunkbed we would share across from Sven’s companions who were questioning his absence. In broken English and many hand gestures, we conveyed to the pair of Swedes what had become of their friend. 

I had been on several ships in my lifetime, my lodgings were mostly hammocks or, if I was lucky, sacks of flour on the floorboards. A bunk was a serious upgrade. 

“Still smells of armpits and arseholes,” Murtagh grumbled under his breath. 

“Aye, you’re sure you’re ‘no talking about yerself, old man?” I chuckled. 

“If yer mam, rest her soul, were here… why she’d have yer hide for-” 

“For trying to be a man of worth, Murtagh?” I looked at him in all seriousness. 

I could joke around with the older man from dawn until dusk but I did love the old curmudgeon. He was the closest thing I had to family in this world. I knew a few things about him for sure, he loved me and he loved my dearly departed mother. 

He looked at me then, and understood. His dark eyes comprehending what I meant. We quickly put our few belongings away and got out to walk the decks and see what there was to see. I ran to the starboard bow and took off my cap yelling and hollering with the throng of people on deck and below as we were moving slowly out of harbor. 

“D’ye ken anyone there, lad?” Murtagh yelled over the noise. 

“No, but it doesn’t matter. I’ll miss you! Goodbye, England ya dirty scum!” I laughed into my yell. 

There was no love lost between the highlanders and jolly old England. With nothing much tying me to Europe, I had dreamed of America for so long and now we were headed there. My head was dizzy with the thought. 

Soon, the crowds dispersed and Murtagh and I kept on walking the decks and looking around at all the officers and shiny new outfitting prepared for the Titanic’s maiden voyage. 

“One day these will all be old and you’ll tell your grandchildren all about how you were on the first trip, James Fraser.” Murtagh lightened up a bit and chucked my shoulder. 

“Aye and pigs will fly, too. I dinna see any lass willing to marry me with no job nor coin, plus there’s the matter of the price on my head back in Scotland…” 

Murtagh sighed, “Aye, that, too.” 

I climbed near the railing at the very top of the ship and looked over. Below us, dolphins played around the hull and as we started to clip the waves with our velocity, the wind kicked up to a veritable blast. 

“Only one lady I’m concerned with right now, and that’s Lady Liberty. Four days, Murtagh, maybe five and we’ll see her. Welcoming us with open arms,” I stuck out my arms to illustrate and Murtagh cracked a smile, I could tell even he was excited at the prospect. 

“The American Dream.” Murtagh stressed. 

“Aye. Where a man dinna have to work and sweat and bleed on his own land that was seized by the British and earn nothing for it. I’ll use my hands to get us where we need to be and then we’ll buy our own farm, maybe out west. I hear Minnesota is a good land. And we’ll work and sweat and bleed on our own land and no man will tell us what to do wi’ it.” 

“Today, scrap off the street. Tomorrow, king of the world.” Murtagh bemused. 

“It’s all how you look at it, Daddy-O. I say make it count.” 

Looking off into the sunset in front of us, I stretched my arms outwards in embrace of the freedom that lay ahead. 

……………………………………………….

The next day, we pushed on towards the west of Ireland and were joined on board by a distant relative of Murtagh’s. At least, according to the rumor mill if that could be believed. 

“Think she’d ken who ye are?” I asked Murtagh as we tucked into some porridge from the canteen. 

“Maybe. Leastwise, worth a shot. Doubtful a woman such as my Aunt Fitz would forget her nephew. I’ll see what I can do to meet up wi’ her.” 

……………………………………………………………………………………………

  
  
  


“Ship’s nice, eh?” 

A fellow off to my shoulder with a full beard and kind smile was commenting to himself when a passing man answered. 

“An Irish ship.” He nodded, leaning on the rail next to me, his Irish accent was thick. No wonder he had reason to comment on the proud specimen we were on. 

“Nah,” the shorter man shrugged and looked from tip to stern clinging to his belief. 

“It is! 15,000 Irishmen built this ship. Solid as a rock. Big Irish hands,” The man held up his hands, covered in calluses and cuts from a life of manual labor. 

“Typical,” the bearded one hissed, taking a toothpick out of his mouth and pointing with one finger to me and the Irish fellow. 

“First class dogs down here taking a shite.” 

“Lets us know where we rank in the scheme of things,” I muttered as I shared an amused look with Murtagh. 

“Like we could forget?” The bearded man laughed, his eyes lighting up with the shared humor. 

“It’s the feckin truth of it.” 

We shared a small chuckle before the brick wall of an Irishman stuck out his hand to shake my own. 

“Jacob Praeter.” 

“Jamie Fraser,” I said, taking it and returning the firm handshake. 

“I’m Cosmin,” the shorter fellow with the beard winked at me and Murtagh. 

“Nice to meet you.” I nodded. 

“Hey, d’ya make any money wit yer drawing?” Jacob gestured with his head towards the bag at my side, a portrait in charcoal of the children running around the deck was poking out of the top. 

I opened my mouth to answer when something in gold caught my gaze above Murtagh’s head. I stood up straighter to see what it was. 

The sunlight was glinting off the dress of a girl on the deck above us as she walked out of the private areas reserved for first class passengers. 

I didn’t notice anything else around me or what was being said, it was as if my ears had been turned off to the noise. All that mattered was this moment. 

I looked up longingly to see the slight brunette with the golden day dress cross the deck to the corner rail. Folding her hands neatly across it, she closed her eyes and lifted her face to the bright April sun letting it kiss her skin. It was as flawless and smooth as a pearl and shone with an iridescence that was indicative of her young age. She couldn’t have been more than sixteen, caught in the budding beauty of youth mixed with womanhood, her curves sculpted out of the most beautiful shape I’d ever seen in my life. 

My heart stopped beating as a curl of the deepest brown loosened itself from the tight updo on her head and released out from her crown in a long, dark tangle enticing me closer. 

I swallowed hard, her little ruby lips were pursed in annoyance, or was it grief? Her brief expression as she raised her face skywards was unusual for someone in first class to show to the world. I was used to the smiles, the faked niceties, but not anything remotely resembling _human_ nature. 

She opened her eyes and looked down… at me. The bright amber in her eyes shone and I fell into an oblivion that was her and everything about her. Like a siren, she bade me come and worship at the altar of her body with my unholy thoughts. 

I had seen the naked female form before, multiple times for multiple portraits and paintings. However, this was one form I didn’t merely want to draw or look at. My artist’s eye took a backburner to my baser nature and I found myself carefully sliding off the layers of satin with my nimble fingers. Caressing the velvet of her skin underneath and studying her lips more closely before meeting them with my own. 

I was desperate to get closer to her, to see her in front of me. To wrap my arms around her waist at the railing and kiss the gentle curve of her bare neck as the breeze touched us both with its cool rush. To bite the back of her neck and hear her moan, causing gooseflesh to break out on my forearms. To reach in front of me and wedge her arse solidly between my thighs to see how we'd fit… To whip her around and worshipfully, languidly explore her rosy lips with my own....To taste her mouth and- 

  
  


Murtagh waved a hand in front of my face and I ground my teeth in anger. Jacob and Cosmin laughed at the sudden red rushing up from my collar to my ears. 

“Ah forget about it, boyyo,” Jacob winked at me. “You’ll as sooner have pigs fly out yer arse than get next to the likes of her.” 

My gaze returned to the railing where I saw a thin man with brown hair walk up and chastise the young woman for something, I didn’t see her face but I saw how she flinched and grabbed her own wrist out of his grasp on it angrily. I bristled at the thought of anyone touching her with ill intent. 

As they both returned indoors, I moved my parchment bag over my midsection hoping to God it would hide my cockstand from the others. It was absolutely throbbing with want of her and a response inside me which I didn’t entirely understand. 

I had to find a way to meet her. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


................

Jamie's bag at the end: 

"Why are you using me like this?" 


	5. Falling Feels like Flying

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Walk past, quick brush  
> I don’t like slow motion, double vision in rose blush  
> I don’t like that falling feels like flying till the bone crush 
> 
> -TS, Goldrush

At dinner, I sat frozen to my spot while the glittering masterpiece of first class swirled around my head like a carousel I was not a part of. Cheap carnival tricks, that’s all it was. In the stifling silence, my fingers twitched at the pink and black beading in ornate patterns all down my thighs on my dress. My corset felt even more constricting than usual. I tried to smile but I could not. 

In the lives around me, I saw my own. My mother, Julia, hastened to regale the group with ideas and thoughts of my own impending wedding. All I could think of was how, looking at her, I could see my whole life stretched out before me as if I had already lived it. An endless gondola ride of parties and cotillions. From the primped crib I was born into, to the lace shroud I would be wrapped in at death. My entire life in between constricted and laid out as carefully as bricks on the foundation of a new shiny house. The same narrow people, the same mindless chatter, the same “oh is she” and “what a jolly old sport he was” echoed on and on and on again. 

My breathing was quick and shallow, I was standing on the edge of a great precipice. No one to pull me back, no one who cared or even noticed. 

I wanted to scream, not like a child throwing a tantrum, but like a woman loose with the eternal fury of all that she had in her going inarguably wrong. My heart beat inside my chest in sickening thuds as Frank put his arm around me, pulling me closer to him before slinking off to join the men for a nightcap and cigars. 

I raced to my cabin as fast as I could. My high heels mincing the floorboards as I ran, constricted by the unforgiving fabric of my long evening gown now a mess of blush and auburn. 

I burst into my cabin room and stood there in the quiet stillness, my hands shaking at my sides. 

“Andreea.” I called out warily. “Andreea….” 

A note from Frank was on my dressing table. 

“My darling, Claire. I have a surprise for you tucked into the safe, after dinner I’ll head over and show you. You are my love. Frank.” 

I didn’t need another gem I would have to lock away, like myself. They should all see the light of day. Suddenly, I couldn’t take it anymore. I flung my reticule bag down on the table and hastily shook out my curls until they were wild and free around my face. I tried as best as I could to reach behind me and undo the millions of buttons down my back fastening me tightly into the cocoon of my dress but to no avail. 

“Andreea!” 

There was no answer. 

“Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ.” 

Suddenly the room was spinning, I couldn’t breathe, all I could think of was to get fresh air. But I needed more than that, I needed to run. 

I burst from my cabin and ran down the decks, it was late, hardly anyone was about except for the officers and occasional sailor who did their best to ignore a half-mad looking girl as I raced down the ship. The April night air nipped at my bare arms and face as I ran. 

To be a girl again, ruddy and wild and free. To run like the wind and scream before I learned civility. To be genuine and untamed and… enough. 

There was no one around me as I reached the end of the deck towards the very rear of the ship. I had run a great distance and was out of breath, but I didn’t stop. I gripped the railing and looked over. Below me, the waves churned and grumbled into a furious roar over the propellor blades of the ship. 

One jump and it was over. No one would hear me. No one would notice. 

I stifled a sob as I struggled over the railing and hung on behind me, my heels securing my footing in the bars of the rail near the deck behind me. I was close, so close. In one breath, I would soar away like a bird. I could finally be free. 

“Lass. Don’t do it.”

A Scottish accent made me whip my head around to see the man from earlier, now larger than life and twice and handsome in front of me. 

…………………………………………………………………………………

I couldn’t sleep, awake and with my own thoughts, I went for a walk on deck. Finally, I made himself comfortable on the cold, hard bench by the rear of the ship and looked up at the frigid April night to count the stars. Everything was so much brighter out here. I was used to sleeping in the outdoors, lighting a cigarette I had bummed off Cosmin, I lit it and lay back down on the bench letting the hard wood embrace my form. I let the burning stick hang from my lower lip as I thought about the young woman on the deck from earlier. 

I hadn’t fallen in love before but I knew I was dangerously close. I had always pulled myself away from that certain precipice before anything else had happened. I knew that falling felt like flying til the bone crush. I wasn’t about to be burned like others I had known. And yet… 

I couldn’t get her out of my mind. 

A sob ripped through the air as a whirlwind of fabric rushed by my head. I pulled myself up only to see the back of a woman, hair unloosed like a wild thing, rushing towards the back of the ship. My first thought was perhaps she was seasick, but the lass didn’t heave over the side… at least not in the way I was expecting. Stifling another sob, she raised her leg and gently lifted herself up and over the railing. 

My heart hit the floor, I looked around but it was just us on the deck. The late hour would make it odd to be seen with her, but to hell with the hour. I bolted upright and took a few running steps forward before slowing down, I didn’t want to frighten her. 

There was something familiar about the way her brown curls jutted out over her face as she had her back to me, terrified she would slip off the rail and into the night, I spoke quietly and let the air carry my voice. 

“Lass. Don’t do it.” 

I’d never had to talk someone off a literal precipice before and my voice shook slightly. 

She whipped her head around and looked at me through tear-stained, whiskey brown eyes. It was  _ her _ . 

My heart went cold and I caught my breath. She was beautiful. Messy, but still gorgeous. I looked around over my shoulder to see if she was with anyone, maybe running from someone? But nothing. Still nothing. 

“Stay back!” Her voice was breaking an octave higher in fright, I cursed myself for making her jump a little. The irony was not lost on me. 

“Don’t come any closer, I swear I’ll do it.” 

I bit the inside of my cheek furiously thinking of what to say but I had no idea. 

I looked at my shoes, I couldn’t watch if she was going to jump… I just couldn’t… 

Reaching out a hand, I stepped forward. 

“Come on, lass. Just… just grab my hand, I’ll help ye back over.” 

“No!” She shrieked at me. “Stay where you are! I’ll let go!” 

I cringed, I had forgotten about the cigarette in my left hand and it singed my fingers. I nodded to her to show her what I was doing and then tossed it over the railing, using it as an excuse to stay closer to her, I didn’t back away. 

“No you won’t,” I say resolutely. 

_ What the fuck.  _

I could hardly believe my own confidence as I shrugged my shoulders and put my hand in my pocket looking out over the sea with her so close to me. One more yard and she’d be in my arms. Safe. 

“What?” She said slowly, a new fire coming into her brown eyes replacing the apathy with another emotion. Anger. 

_ Ok, anger was good.  _

“Who do you think you are, telling me what I will and won’t do? I can do whatever I want.” 

“Aye, ye can.” I lifted an eyebrow at her and started unbuttoning the cuffs on my sleeves. 

“But,” I warned, “Then I’ll have to come in after ye.” 

She scoffed, throwing her head back at me and glaring. 

“No, you won’t! I’ll die… I’ll….” 

I edged closer to look over the railing next to her. 

“Aye, ye’ll what, lass? Drown? The drop itself will’na kill ye. It’ll be as painful as a thousand knives though.” 

“It… it will?” She stammered, her voice dropped and she sniffed hard. 

I sighed casually, trying to keep her from seeing how my heart was racing. This was madness. 

“Aye. Once I fell into a loch one winter, I was seven years old. Wasn’a enough to kill me, but it sure damn hurt. I’ll never forget the pain, it’s like a million knives ripping through yer skin at the same time. Ye cannae breathe, the pain is so bad.” 

She slumped a little back against the rail. 

“Which is why,” I added surely. “I’m no looking forward to jumpin in after ye.” 

“You’re a madman!” Her voice raged once more in anger, my cocky attitude was doing the trick and I could see I was annoying her. Still, feeling any range of emotion beside suicidal tendencies was a good thing, wasn’t it? 

I had no idea what I was doing. 

“Pardon me, lass,” I got close enough to whisper in her ear. She smelled of roses in the mid summer and I instantly regretted doing that. “But I’m ‘no the one hanging off the back of the ship, ye ken?” 

I sucked in my breath and made a show of taking off my boots, looking at her as I undid the laces. 

“What… what are you doing?” 

“Coming in after ye.” 

“I didn’t think it mattered if you had boots on…” 

I chuckled, “Well pardon me, lass. No everyone has a full wardrobe and chests full of shoes on this voyage. I’ll be needing them when we’re back on board.” 

“You’re distracting me.” She said sourly, looking back out over the sea. 

“Aye,” I looked up at her through the auburn lock of hair that blew down over my eyes, “if ye were going to do it, ye would’ve already jumped.” 

“How … how DARE you?” She shot me daggers with her eyes but I could tell they were softening a bit. 

Oh, really? 

I gulped. Shaking off my coat, I began unbuttoning my shirt. I could see her eyes follow my fingers. 

“I’ll keep going.” 

_ Would I?!  _

“You, sir. Have no sense of common decency.” 

“I’ll ‘no get my clothes wet, lass. Now are ye coming back with me, or aren’t ye?” 

I could see her struggle to answer. One. Two. Three more buttons lower. Christ. The night air was frigid against my bare chest. 

“Alright…..” 

“Say it.” 

_ What the hell, Jamie. _

Something took over me, but I really truly wanted to hear her ask for help. To s

“I won’t jump. Just… can you please keep your shirt on.” 

I felt the corner of my mouth twitch into a smile, “Aye.” 

I stuck out a hand and she grabbed on. It was as if a tiny lightning bolt erupted between us, I clung to her hand with the electricity of a man unable to let go. 

“Jamie. Jamie Fraser.” 

She turned to me to help pull her back over. Her heart-shaped face was pale in the moonlight and the cold, still her whiskey brown eyes burned brightly. Hers was the first face I had ever seen, I swore I was blind before I looked upon it. 

“Claire Elizabeth Beauchamp.” 

Claire took a step up to hoist over the railing when… 

“Oh!” 

Her foot slipped and her shoe fell down into the sea, the rest of her body would have followed had it not been for my quick reflexes and massive size holding me back. 

Claire screamed in pure terror, the sound ripped through the night and went straight through to my heart. 

I gritted my teeth and hoisted her up over the railing with both hands. We fell together on the deck in a pile with her face smashed into my still-bare chest as my shirt flew open in the struggle. 

Claire’s screams drew attention to the area. Two officers ran up and saw us in a heap and me in a state of undress, fairly ripped me out from under her and held me up roughly by the back. I could have taken them both down but I didn’t move. I knew what this must’ve looked like. Murtagh would kill me. 

Claire hastened to her feet, her face in a red flush as the men yelled for the Master of Arms. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


.............................................................

Buckle up, kids. Next chapter we break the fourth wall for an important statement.

Also, we all know the ending right? Right??? Do we really though... I guess we'll see. 


	6. Sassenach

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We do switch POV in the chapter, hope you all don't mind :) It felt right to see both perspectives. Also the tongue in cheek breaking of the fourth wall.... as a rape survivor, the books just hit home lately and I had to poke some fun at DG :P

In our current state of disarray, it didn’t look good. The officers were quick to rip me off Jamie’s body and snatch him away from me. I loudly protested but before I knew it everyone was there, yes, even Frank. 

“This is unacceptable!” Frank yelled up into Jamie’s face, if he wasn’t so mad it would be almost comical with the height difference. “What makes you think you could put your hands on my fiancé?” 

Jamie looked at me for guidance, but I was just as stumped as he was to explain my near-suicide. 

“Frank, stop. No!” 

“No? You’re kidding Claire, when I was pulled from the billiard table, this man here said you’d almost been raped and to come at once.” 

……………………………..

Jamie looks right at you. No, not Claire, not Frank, YOU, dear reader. 

“Rape really isn’t a good plot moving device.” 

*back to our continued programming* 

……………………………

“Raped?” I laughed, “Jesus H. Roosevelt, is that what they said? No, Frank, he was… helping me.” 

“Helping you?” Frank looked incredulously at me. 

“Yes, I uh, bent over to look at the…. Look at the turning thingies,” I explained poorly on purpose, “um under the ship and I nearly fell over. Jamie saved me.” 

“The turning things.” The master at arms snorted, “That how it were, lad?” 

Jamie nodded slowly and looked at my face in cloaked amusement as I played up my own stupidity for the men. 

“Women and machinery do not mix,” Frank shook his head but backed off from Jamie. 

“Alright, thank you my fellow,” he opened his wallet and started fingering dollar bills, holding up a twenty he tried pawning it at Jamie. “I think that ought to do it.” 

“Really, Frank?” I huffed. “The man saves me and all you offer him is a twenty?” 

“Oh, Claire?” He raised a thin brown eyebrow to me, “I suppose my fiancé thinks you are owed more of a thank you boy, so…..” 

Frank looked from me to Jamie and back again before his face lit up in a cruel smile. I hated that smile, that fake aristocratic bullshit that meant more trouble was afoot. 

“Why not join us for dinner? Say, tomorrow night?” Frank explained shortly, “I’m sure the others would love to hear the tale of how you saved my fiancé.” 

I looked at Jamie to hint to him that no, no he should NOT accept this invitation but he looked at me, his blue eyes veiled with something I could not read. 

He locked eyes with me and replied to Frank’s offer, “Sure. Could me in.” 

I chanced a look over my shoulder as Frank hurried me away from him.. 

I had to see him again, to warn him not to come. They would only laugh and gawk and make fun at his expense. I knew they would, my mother included. Their golden lips would only tarnish the sound of his name. James Alexander Malcolm MacKenzie Fraser. It would break my heart if they did. 

…………………………………………………..

  
  


The door to my cabin cracked open slightly later that night, Frank entered in his dressing gown. We had never been… _intimate_. Not that there wasn’t opportunity, but he saw to it that no one would raise an eyebrow. Still, I did not return his affections. 

I was seated at my dressing table, brushing through the wild curls and braiding my hair to keep it straight for the night. Frank was carrying a blue velvet bag that fit into his hand and clicked around slightly. 

“This,” Frank gestured, “Was meant to be a wedding gift from me to you. I saw you were melancholy and I .. well, I want it to help.” 

I swallowed hard as he sat on the bed and opened the little bag. A long strand of beautifully formed, miniature baroque pearls fell out into his palm. I gasped in spite of myself. 

“They’re beautiful,” I said softly. 

“Scotch pearls,” Frank said in a low voice. “Bought them in an antique auction and I want you to know they’ve graced the necks of quite a few ladies at court. I knew you’d love them.” 

I did love them. My own sweet grandmother had a strand similar and it reminded me of my childhood. Frank couldn’t have known that though. I reached out my hand and Frank smiled and lifted the strand over my head to settle the long necklace around my shoulders and bosom. 

The white pearls danced in the firelight and shone brightly against my pale neck. 

Frank kissed the top of my head and inhaled my hair, his dark eyes glowing. 

“You know, Claire,” he said in a low voice. “I do love you.” 

I breathed in quickly, maybe Frank wasn’t so bad if he cared, truly cared….

“I would give you anything,” Frank continued, “if you just gave yourself to me.” 

There it was. 

The piece de resistance.

Of course he wanted something in return. 

And this is why I wanted none of him. 

Frank kissed my head and, without waiting for a reply, bowed out of the cabin and went back to his own, whistling a tune we had heard the band playing at lunch. 

I looked at my reflection in the mirror, my eyes seemed so large and sad in the light. The strand of pearls held me to him like a chain and I wanted to snap them, to hear them tumble out onto the floor in a delightful clatter of vengeance. I took them off and put them back. 

…………………….

  
  


I milled about the lower deck that morning, hoping to God that I’d see her again. Murtagh showed up and sat next to me on the bench as my eyes didn’t drop from the first class deck above. 

“Yer _invited_ , were ye?” 

“That so hard to believe?” I hummed in a low tone, more to myself than to him. 

“Aye, tis. What in God’s name will ye talk about with a bunch of snob-nosed oil men and their diamond-encrusted wives?” 

The thought of dinner in first class was actually terrifying but I tried to put on a brave face. I knew Claire hadn’t wanted me to come and yet… I couldn’t leave her. I was in this now, like it or not and she would have to adjust to the feeling I had of protection over her. 

A slip of a thing with a blue and white dress waved at me and hastily made her way down to the deck. Claire’s hair was tied in a low bun and some strands had come loose making her the bonniest thing I’d ever seen. 

My face flushed red again as she drew closer, Murtagh glanced at me and cocked an eyebrow in my direction as he introduced himself to Claire and made his leave of us. 

“First class, my arse….” I could hear him mumbling as he left. 

“Your… friend is charming.” Claire’s brown eyes twinkled at me merrily. I could tell she was fairly bouncing with the energy I felt inside my own chest. 

“Aye… godfather actually,” I was suddenly struggling to find words as we both looked at each other and smiled, her face was touched with the sun and her cheeks flushed slightly. 

I didn’t know what to do or say or where to look, “Would ye like to take a walk with me?” 

“Sure.” Claire brightened as if I’d asked her to come with me to a party. 

It was a start and to be honest, all I could offer her that would be respectable for her. I wasn’t too keen on this fiancé of hers but to be honest, Claire didn’t seem too fond of him either. 

We got to walking and talking and suddenly, there was no one else around for miles, it was me and her and the bright blue sea beyond. Most people I’d met had to work to get anything out of me, I wasn’t much to tell my life’s story to a stranger. But with Claire… it came pouring out. Like a dam that had been loosened, a sudden rush of words and I felt as though I’d known her for years. 

“Tell me about your family,” Claire urged, happy to walk and smile and laugh at my abilities for spinning a yarn. 

I had quite a few, thankfully being a disgraced laird with no property was certifiably entertaining for the young English woman. My parents had had a whirlwind romance and I recounted the time my father almost lost his life trying to see my mother when he’d been caught by my uncles. Stories were all that was left of them now, I had been on my own since fifteen due to consumption. Murtagh was my only guardian and to be perfectly honest, we guarded each other now that I was seventeen. 

Two kites in the wind going where life would take us, I recalled his chasing me across Europe to Claire as her eyes widened. 

“All by yourself?” 

I nodded, “Aye.” 

“You lived in Paris all by yourself?” 

I laughed and shook my head a little, “Haven’t ye ever been to a city alone, Sassenach?” 

Claire’s eyes grew wide at the word.

I suddenly realized the word had come out wrong, it was still over a hundred years after the defeat by the British, but Sassenach was still a slang term that was used in a negative light mostly. 

“I’m sorry, ye ken….” 

“Good day, Jamie… James Fraser.” Claire was obviously offended and backed away a step. 

I swallowed hard. 

“I did’na mean it that way, Claire.” 

“That’s MISS Beauchamp, please.” 

“Miss Beauchamp.” I said slowly my heart ached at my sudden folly. “I didn’a mean anything by it, ye ken it was… a pet name...I meant no harm, lass.” 

Claire breathed in deeply and shifted her weight to squint at me in the sunlight. 

“I’m guessing no one’s spoken to ye like that before?” 

“Well…. No, to be perfectly honest. I've never been called anything but Claire. I did travel as a child with my Uncle Lambert but no, no I haven’t been all alone ever. There’s always been someone. I suppose you think I’m a spoiled rich girl-” 

“No! Claire… Mistress, I didn’a assume anything,” I took off my cap and ran a hand through my hair in agitation. “To be fair we’ve walked nearly two miles around this desk and I ken so verra little about ye. I reckon that’s not why ye came to talk to me, is it?” 

Claire nodded slowly and resumed a slow pace next to me, carefully guiding us away from any prying ears or eyes that might be watching. She continued in a lower voice. 

“Mr. Fraser….” 

“Jamie.” 

“Jamie,” Claire leaned against the rail and looked sideways at me, “ I want to thank you for what you did. For pulling me back and…” 

Claire’s voice caught and her lower lip trembled slightly, my eyes rested on her face and I struggled to hold myself back from comforting her. 

“And for your discretion. Look, I know what you must think. I live such a charmed life, what do I know about misery?” 

  
  


I looked into her eyes then, cutting into her own soul I saw the pain clearly splayed across her face. 

“No, no I wasn’a actually.” 

Claire blinked, her face went a little paler than usual and she closed her mouth firmly as I went on. 

“I was thinking what could have happened to this girl to make her think she had no better escape than jumping off the back of a ship?” 

Claire’s fire came back into her and she lit up like a spark of anger and spite, she balled her small fists up and bit at her cheeks before exploding into her own disclosure. 

“It was… everything. My whole world and everyone in it and the inertia of my life. I'm powerless to stop it.” 

My eyes lit upon the gigantic gaudy red bauble on Claire’s finger. It must’ve been four carats of ruby. 

“Ye would’ve sunk straight to the bottom with that on ye.” I joked. 

Claire looked down sadly at it, “Five hundred invitations have gone out. All of Boston will be there. All the while I feel like I’m screaming for help and no one even notices.” 

A pause. 

And then, then I worked up courage to say what I was actually thinking. I didn’t want to offend her further. 

“Do ye love the man, Claire?” 

I didn’t want to hear the answer but then again...

_Please, Claire. Kill this feeling in my chest. I’m begging ye to._

“I beg your pardon?” Claire blinked and huffed slightly. 

“Do ye love him?” 

“You’re being awfully rude, Jamie.” She couldn’t meet my gaze, her face flushed again and she stammered slightly. 

“‘Tis a simple enough question, lass. Do ye love the man?” I leaned forward slightly, now this… this was interesting. 

“You shouldn’t be asking me this,” Claire turned slightly but I took hold of her arm lightly. 

“Why can’t ye answer the question?” I asked a third time. 

……………………………………………………………..

I was flustered enough with him grabbing my arm, but the questions he was asking me were causing me to panic. 

I laughed sharply and pulled my arm away, “You’re being utterly absurd! You don’t know me and I don’t know you and you are… rude and unkind and … and I bid you good day, Mr. Fraser!” 

I stuck my hand out and took Jamie’s, shaking it firmly up and down with the vigor of a woman perturbed. 

“It’s been a pleasure, Jamie. It really has. I sought you out to thank you and now you are thanked and I am done and I shall see you no longer.” 

I kept shaking his hand although my sentence had concluded. He smirked. Damn those blue eyes, damn that smile, damn the entire man to hell. I was glued to the spot and totally under his control. 

“And insulted me…..” 

“You deserved it for calling me a Sassenach!” I cried.

“I did.” 

“You did,” I echoed him. 

“Right.” He nodded, auburn curls tickling his cap in the wind. 

He shook my hand just as hard, my arm was getting tired. Why wouldn’t he let go of me?

“I thought ye were going,” he said softly. 

“I am….” I said exasperatedly. “You are so… so annoying!” 

“Huh,” Jamie surveyed my face with the look of intent to kiss me and I blushed furiously letting go of his hand at long last as he stared at my lips. 

I was sorry to go but angry to leave and utterly and completely half in love with him. 

“What is this stupid thing you always carry?” 

I snatched the bag from his shoulder and went over to the bench to open it and sit down. I couldn’t leave yet. And yet… there was no good excuse to stay. I opened the leather-bound notebook and a few charcoal sketches sprung out at me. I caught hold of one. 

“Are you an artist or something?” 

“Or something,” Jamie shrugged, his hands now in his pockets.

“These are….” I wanted to say they were awful, horrible, not even note-worthy. Damnit. 

“These are quite …. Good. Great even.” I said softly. 

Jamie beamed at me. 

Sitting next to me on the bench his shoulder brushed mine and I felt goosebumps on my arm not related to the weather. 

“I capture likenesses, it’s a skill I learned as a lad. Thought I’d make a go of it in jolly Paris, but ah,” He shrugged, “‘No much interest in them I’m afraid.” 

“These are wonderful.” I noted surely, my eyes catching his, “You’ve captured their likeness so well.” 

A sketch of two young immigrant men fell out and I smiled as I saw the strain in their faces as they arm-wrestled each other at a small table made of an upturned barrel. 

“Some things are universal,” I mused, “only in first class they do it by bragging about how big their mines are….” 

Jamie snorted softly. 

“Oh!” 

I turned the page and turned it quickly back again to the two men, there was a woman with little to no clothing on the next one, sitting on a chair doing her hair in a mirror looking at the viewer with hairpins in her mouth. 

“Ah,” Jamie nodded. “Ye ken women in Paris are more likely to take off their clothes for a nude likeness.” 

I swallowed my pride and opened it again. Catching my breath I looked more closely, I felt like I was intruding on something private. 

“She’s very pretty.” I mused, thinking what it must have been like to stand before Jamie like that.... I blushed horrifically at the thought. Suddenly, I was hit with a sharp pang of envy. 

What the hell, Claire. Why was I jealous? Here I was, engaged to another man and I was JEALOUS of a nude girl from Paris who was probably paid to sit there and a lot more…. 

“Did you have a love affair with her?” 

Jamie smirked again, there was something indeterminable in his eyes as he scanned my face, “No…. with her fingers… they were so delicate… but no, Sassenach-eh, Claire.” 

He caught himself. 

I smiled, relieved. 

"You can call me Sassenach, I don't mind." 

"Sassenach." Jamie smiled. 

This time my heart sang a joyous tune at the word. 

.........

Precious flower Claire having never seen a nude sketch before..... andddd? Are you taking commissions, Jamie? 


	7. How De Do

We talked all through the afternoon and before I’d realized it, the golden rays of sunshine hitting the deck in the haze of early evening was settling into the wooden marvel of a ship. It really was a ship of dreams. 

My cheeks hurt from laughing at Jamie’s stories, but neither of us wanted to stop talking, each completely entranced with each other in the way only teenagers could be. I marveled at him. The very thought of him, the enticing freedom he presented of himself and to others was intoxicating. 

“I dinnae ken where to start but I’ll start small, probably do portraits on the pier at Coney Island. Ten cents each.” 

I looked at him in amazement, “Why can’t I be like you, Jamie? Just heading off whenever I feel like it.” 

I sighed and looked at him carefully out of my side vision lest he find me too presumptuous. 

“Say we’ll go there someday. To that pier. Even if we only just talk about it.” 

Jamie straightened up a bit and squared his shoulders at me. 

“No, no… we’ll do it,” He nodded resolutely with no hint of play in his voice. “We’ll drink cheap beer, ride on the...what’s it called… ye ken… the roller coaster? Til we throw up.” 

I laughed, the sound tickling my chest along with the flutter of a thousand wings in my heart whenever he was near. 

“We’ll ride horses in the surf, none of that side saddle stuff for lassies mind ye. Like a real cowboy. I’ll be a real American then.” 

Jamie winked at me, I found it utterly endearing his other eye twitched when he winked so the end result was a slightly awkward twitch but he didn’t care. 

“You mean… one leg on each side?” My eyes widened again. 

“Sure. I’ll show ye,” Jamie smirked again. “I’ll teach you to ride like a man.” 

Jamie did an awful impression of a western cowboy and I giggled. 

“I want to know how to swear like a man, and spit like a man, too.” I echoed in the same accent. 

“Oh do ye now?” Jamie’s eyes twinkled at me. 

“I do! Never learned.” I laughed. 

Jamie took my hand and dragged me half squealing up to the top deck. The amber light of dusk was fast approaching on the west casting long shadows on the starboard side of the ship. 

“I’ll teach ye, come on Sassenach.” 

“What?” 

“Aye,” he nodded. 

“Here?” 

“Why not?” Jamie shrugged. “Seems as good a place as any.” 

I opened my mouth in astonishment but before I could speak he let out a most unattractive sound in his throat and spat straight out into the wind, I watched the wind carry it down into the waves. 

“See? Now yer turn, Sassenach.” 

I blushed and looked around, horrified. No one was close, no one that I knew anyway. 

I went on my tiptoes over the side and spat out meekly. Hardly anything came out and what did came back at me and I cringed, wiping it off my cheek. 

“No no, ye’ve got to really give it some gusto. Get a good full breathe, Sassenach. Then, when yer ready use yer chest to really-” 

I tried again, my second attempt I must say went better. Only this time it landed on deck right in front of an unmistakable form. 

“Mother!” I gasped. 

Jamie shifted his weight quickly and took off his hat. Even his rosy lips looked blanched in the light. 

“Ma’am.” 

“Mother, this is Jamie Fraser. The man who saved me.” I blushed furiously in my introduction and Julie Beauchamp was no fool. 

While the other ladies with her, Mrs. Fitz included, were glad to meet him and nice enough, Julia Beauchamp looked at Jamie like a bug that needed squashing. 

“If ye pardon me from being so bold, ma’am. I do believe I’m traveling with someone of yer acquaintance.” 

“Oh?” Mrs. Fitz smiled kindly. 

“Murtagh Fitzgibbons.” 

“Oh my lord above! Is he here, really? Well invite him along, too!” Mrs. Fitz smiled, her old face wrinkling into a thousand crinkles. “And how do ye know him?” 

“He’s my godfather.” Jamie nodded quickly. 

“Ah, so he must be. Well that would make you…..” Mrs. Fitz closed her eyes for a second while she thought, I could tell she was sifting through decades of information. “Ellen’s son, aye?” 

“Aye, Ellen Fraser ma’am.” 

“A damned fine woman.” Mrs. Fitz said calmly, ignoring the looks of horror from the others as she cursed. 

A loud trumpet sounded from somewhere behind us and Mother grabbed my hand, “Let’s go dress for dinner, darling. Jamie… it was nice meeting you.” Her smile didn’t quite reach her eyes. 

“I’ll see you at dinner, Jamie.” I was torn that she was herding me along. Even though I had spent all day with him it wasn’t enough, I was sad to go. 

I heard Mrs. Fitz take Jamie aside in a low voice and ask him kindly, “Now yer headed into the viper’s den here, lad. I reckon I’ve got some clothes that’ll suit ye. Come wi’ me.”

…………………………………………

“Daddy-O, will ye calm down?” 

“Son, if ye won’t stop callin me that I’ll have to beat yer hide.” Murtagh growled at me, shuffling uncomfortably around in the too-big suit that Mrs. Fitz was nice enough to let him borrow as well as my own. I was much more the size of her son that Murtagh was and filled mine out nicely. 

Murtagh, however, looked like a wool someone had left in the sun too long after washing, shrunken and odd in the folds of the black and white fabrics. 

“I dinna ken what ye’re playing at, lad. But I daresay it’ll end in heartache.” 

“Ye were asked for specifically old codger, and I’ll be damned if I have ye ruining the evening by not showing up. Mrs. Fitz was most kind and anxious to meet ye again.” 

Murtagh sighed and nodded, “Alright, but I’ll no like it.” 

“Ye dinna have to.” I looked in the mirror and tried to smooth down my auburn curls that were wild around my cheekbones. 

“Now, I…” I sighed softly, “I need yer help, Da. I dinna ken how to greet a lady.” 

Murtagh wrinkled his brow. 

“Ye dinna remember anything yer mam taught ye?” 

“No!” I stammered, “I ken how to greet a lady, but here. Here is different. I dinna ken how to, how to make them feel _ special _ . How do ye treat a lady of high class?” 

Murtagh shrugged, “Ye stick out her hand and bow and say how d’ya do and that’s all there is to it.” 

“They’re going to kill you.” Sven’s sidekick groaned from the opposite bunk as he lay there with his pillow over his head trying to drown us out. “You do not ever say ‘how de do’ to lady.” 

“No?” My heart raced. 

The angry, bald Swede took the pillow off his head and scowled. “No.” 

Begrudgingly, he got up and stood across from me, “You take hand, see?” 

He took my much larger hand in his and looked up at me. Murtagh hid a laugh as I awkwardly held hands with this man before he made a move to say or do anything else. Almost like this was the only human touch the bastard had had in a year. I stifled a laugh myself realizing this may be true. 

“You take hand,” he repeated. “And you kiss it.” 

Before I could protest, he planted a kiss firmly on the top of my hand. 

“I saw in Nickelodeon once. I always thought, "That is good move, you should try it, Gunnar." And so,” He bowed and let go of my hand. “I give to you to use.” 

I thought about this for a long while and frowned. I did not ken how Claire would react to me kissing any part of her, but the thought alone made me thrill with excitement. 

“How de do, bah!” Gunnar guffawed loudly from the bottom bunk again and turned over like a walrus splaying on a beach for sun. 

..........

Gunner will make his television debut on season 1912 of The Bachelor. Ladies, you've been forewarned. 

  
  



	8. Snake Pit

My whole body shook with nerves as I got ready that evening. The mere knowledge that Jamie was going to be there was enough to make me giddy. It felt as though my two worlds were colliding. 

Jamie had streaked across my life like a comet, brilliant, bold and unfathomably bright. I had no idea how long he would last, but I knew tonight was paramount to my own happiness or doom it to hell completely. 

  
  


“Claire, are you ready, darling?” Julia’s voice rang out as she knocked on the cabin door, “Frank and I were just about to head down to dinner.” 

I opened the door and she sucked her teeth at me, forgetting her manners in light of her apparent displeasure at my choice of dress. 

I wore a dark red dress and painted my lips to match. Mother didn’t approve of the black embroidered snake slithering up the train, but I saw it in Paris and absolutely had to have it. I zoned out while Andreea pinned up my hair with a jade clip. 

“Really, Claire, we’re going to dinner not an exhibition.” 

Frank absentmindedly checked the time on his pocket watch and looked me over once before his eyes glazed over. 

“Come, Ladies. Let’s not keep the men waiting, I’ve important business to discuss.” 

I rolled my eyes and grabbed a small, black reticule bag before slipping out the door behind them. 

If it weren’t for my father, I’m fairly certain my own mother would have snapped up Frank for herself. He was young, wealthy and available… beyond that, there was no need for things like humor or character. At least, not according to Julia Beauchamp. I had suggested the notion before, her own astonishment was an admission of guilt. 

My heart was in my throat with each step and I felt perspiration appear on my upper lip as I cleared my throat near the staircase. I let Frank and Mother go first, neither of them noticed me falling back. 

_Please, on anything and everything holy… let this go well._

I prayed to a force I wasn’t yet sure existed, but God or Mother Mary or a magic genie in the sky, I would worship them all fully for the rest of my life to have a good evening without the pretentious gossip aimed at Jamie. If he stuck around for the second course, he would already be the strongest man I’d ever met. 

Such was my underestimation of his affection for me that I nearly ran back to my room to have Andreea bring my dinner up to me. I peered over the grand staircase and saw Mother and Frank arrive at the bottom, unperturbed by my absence. In fact, neither of them noticed I was gone. Typical. 

I gasped low and held onto the railing as I recognized one of the gentlemen at the bottom of the stairs stirring around. If I had thought him handsome before, dirty face and scruffy cap and ink-stained fingers combined- I had no sense of true beauty until now. My cheeks flushed as red as my lips and I forgot myself for a moment as I took him in, savoring the moment as he was yet unaware of my presence. 

I enjoyed the delicious anonymity of being able to observe him without his knowledge. 

His large frame seemed even taller amid the other first class passengers, His curls swept off his brow and combed down in an attempt to blend in. He could never blend in. Not with his massive shoulders, or the way he carried himself with the smooth audacity of a cat. Fit as a daydream and twice as real, I couldn’t believe how well he’d cleaned up in a while tie and black suit. 

_God Bless the Scots. And Mrs. Fitz._ I would thank her later. 

I recognized the man in the too-big suit next to Jamie as Murtagh. I watched in horror, not surprise, as Mother and Frank merely nodded over them both and kept walking. Jamie opened his mouth to greet them with a smile and stuck out his hand to Frank but was denied any acknowledgement of his presence as a human being. It stung me to the core. 

I couldn’t leave him hanging there. I took a few steps until I was directly in front of the grand clock on the staircase, took a deep breath and took the plunge down the walk to my evening’s fate. I bit my tongue in my mouth and prayed to the holy genie above that I would not fall on my face. 

God he was beautiful, every piece of him fell into place like a magnificent puzzle that the almighty himself had built and I had a feeling it was made for me. The ache in my heart at being betrothed to another disappeared as Jamie turned to the staircase again and his eyes caught sight of me. 

I held my breath and couldn’t stop a smile from emerging from my very soul. Jamie Fraser looked at me the way all girls wanted to be looked upon. Time itself seemed to stop as his lips parted slightly and he froze as if in a painting. His hand mid-gesture as he was communicating something to his godfather and talking with his hands the way he tended to. 

_Don’t fall. Don’t fall. Don’t fall._

Down the steps or further in hopeless love with this beautiful vagabond? I knew not which. 

Jamie and I shared a look of mutual appreciation and admiration which froze me to the spot at the bottom of the stairs. A few steps up, I was exactly his height. He half-bowed and extended one of his tanned and graceful long hands, his fingers holding my black-gloved ones. He brought my hand to his lips and lightly pressed them down on the back of my knuckles, a warm flush spreading on his ears as he did so. 

“Sassenach.” 

The word made my heart skip a beat and I giggled under my breath. 

“James Fraser, sir.” I said politely, “Also, hello Mister Fitzgibbons.” 

Murtagh nodded his head at me as he shifted from one foot to the next and looked incredibly like a small child about to pee. 

“How de do, ma’am.” 

Jamie groaned, “I told ye not to say that, Daddy-O.” 

“Sorry, I dinnae ken what to do here, lad. I feel like a dem fish out of water, pardon the language, Miss.” 

I took the arm Jamie offered me and wrapped my other hand around Murtagh’s, “Stick with me.” 

I pulled slightly and all three of us walked into the great dining room. 

……………………………………………………………………………..

“I heard he was an oil magnate from New Brunswick.” 

“No, you’ve got it wrong, sister. He’s young money from the South of France. Settled from Edinburgh, I believe. Must be part of the Murray-Frasers that settled there.” 

Mother had inadvisably seated Jamie and I together and both of us held our breaths with laughter at the comments we overheard. Like best friends at a church picnic, just being with him made me feel like a child again, the way we played together. The way his eyes held in them a humorous secret that I was delighted to share with him.

Our closeness was not lost on the others. 

Mother’s eyes were blue daggers boring into my soul and I could just tell her little while hands were balled up like tiny cannons on her lap. 

Frank looked annoyed but amused as well for entirely different reasons. 

“When I first saw him, I said to myself,” He smiled cruelly, “He could almost pass for a gentleman.” 

“Almost.” Jamie clenched his jaw as he answered. 

He must’ve been nervous, but he never faltered. They all assumed he was one of them, a member of the club. Mother was quick to point out to all that he was not. 

“Tell us all of the accommodations in steerage, I hear they are quite good on this ship.” Her smile was sweet but her tone was not as she watched us sitting closely together. I was definitely getting scolded later but I didn’t care. 

“Best I’ve seen Ma’am. Hardly any rats.” Murtagh answered for Jamie, raising a glass of the finest champagne to Mother who looked absolutely gobsmacked. 

Mrs. Fitz was seated across from us and beaming at her nephew, “Och, dinnae bring that up dear or I’ll tell them all about when ye were a bairn and had a pet one.” 

Murtagh bit his lips in and Jamie chuckled. The only person there treating them with dignity was Mrs. Fitz and I adored her for it, she was wearing a bright golden gown and looked exactly like the sun on fire. I admired her moxy. 

“Jamie is quite the artist, he was kind enough to show me some of his work today,” I said simply, nudging Jamie with my right leg under the table. Just touching him was a head rush and I couldn’t get enough. 

Jamie blushed and nodded, tucking his head down slightly over the soup in modesty that was not false. 

“Aye, well. Mistress Beauchamp is verra kind.” 

“We differ in our taste in art, me and Claire.” Frank piped up. “Not saying yours isn’t good, Mister Fraser. But she does have peculiar taste.” 

Jamie shook his head as if no offense was taken. 

“And how do you take your caviar, sir?” A waiter sidled up to us and asked in a hushed tone. 

“Oh, um…” 

I froze. 

“Um no caviar, please. I dinnae care for it much.” 

As always, he had it handled. 

Mother’s eyes bore into Jamie and she spoke again, God I wish she’d choke on an olive. 

“Where exactly do you live, Mister Fraser?” 

I looked to Mrs. Fitz but she and Murtagh were deep into conversation. I had no idea how he’d answer so I looked to Jamie with interest. 

“Right now my address is the RMS Titanic. After that, I’m on God’s good humor.” 

“And I suppose… you have _means_ to travel?” 

“Aye,” Jamie took a sip of water from his glass and rubbed his thumb against the condensation on the rim before answering. “I work what jobs I can get. Betwixt and between and all sorts. I won my ticket on Titanic actually in a lucky game of poker.” 

Jamie looked at me and smiled, my heart almost stopped beating. 

“Verra lucky.” His eyes met mine and I could not hold his gaze before finding my lap the most interesting thing to look upon. I didn’t want the others to see my flustered expression as I fairly soared on angel’s wings above them all. 

“A real man makes his own luck.” Frank said shortly, cutting into his steak. 

“And you find that sort of rootless existence appealing, do you?” 

“Mother!”

I hissed over to her in a warning tone. She smiled and dismissed me with a wave of her tiny hand like a fly about to be squashed. 

“Why yes, I do. Ye ken, I have air in my lungs and blank sheets of paper. Everything around me. I love waking up and not knowing where I’ll be or … who I’ll meet.” 

Jamie nodded at the others but I felt his hand on the top of my knee touching me tentatively, then resting lightly where no one could see. 

I nearly spit out my champagne all over the table. 

_Jesus H Christ._

If he was trying to finish the job I started when we met, he was well on his way to doing so. Each touch was pure electricity running from his veins into my own. 

“I intend to live each day to the fullest, to make it count.” 

Mrs. Fitz raised a glass. 

“Aye, to making it count.” 

The others roused in the same toast and I raised a glass, Jamie’s thumb lightly caressed my knee as his resting hand on it moved slightly. My hand shook slightly as I raised my own glass to meet Murtagh’s. 

Jamie smirked and I could tell he was loving every second of my reaction. 

  
  


He kept his hand there when he could and no one was the wiser, except for maybe Murtagh or Mrs. Fitz who shared a knowing look halfway through the meal. There were no more invasive questions for Jamie and the others went back to ignoring him in pursuit of their own topics of the ship and other items that interfered with their daily life. 

Jamie was not asked about saving me, nor was I asked about the incident. It was best to let sleeping dogs lie. 

“Well, here’s where we bid good night, ladies. I think the gentlemen and I will retire to billiards for the night.” 

Frank paused, hovering to where Jamie had taken his hand off of me and scooted her chair back slightly. 

“I’d ask you to join, Fraser. But we’ll be discussing politics and business and I’m sure neither are much interest to you as a … a painter was it? Anyway, thank you for coming and enjoy the rest of your trip.” 

“Likewise.” 

Jamie’s jaw set a little as he curtly stood up and gave Frank a half-bow. As the gentlemen left, Murtagh bid his farewell to his aunt. Jamie’s eyes met mine and held there for a minute. Neither of us knew entirely how to proceed, but he smirked at me. 

“Must you go?” I said softly. 

“Aye,” Jamie nodded, leaning his head down next to mine. I thought I caught him breathing in near my neck, but maybe I was mistaken.

“Goodnight, Claire.” 

Again, he pressed his lips to my hand, this time the back of it was bare against his lips and I felt the light stubble brush against the back of my hand. 

"Will I see you again?" 

“Time will tell.” Jamie winked at me, something deep inside my gut flipped around and bumped into my heart. 

I caught a disapproving look from Mother for the way I absolutely watched Jamie walk away from us. I sucked in my lower lip and bit on it hoping I could die on the spot. 

_Also, what the hell did that mean??? Jamie. I need an itinerary of when “time will tell” is now and it can’t be soon enough._

“Ah, doves, that’s nice.” Mrs. Fitz made a comment on the back of my gown as we got up to walk back to the cabins. 

I had forgotten that stitched into my train was a viper striking at a pair of white doves, flying just out of reach. 

……………………………………………….

I had just changed into my dressing down and dismissed Andreea for the evening, sitting at my small vanity, I began unpinning my hair from my enormous high bun. These things did nothing but give me a headache. I had washed up everywhere but my hand that Jamie had kissed, disgusting I know…. But it didn’t seem right. 

I would kill to see his face again, to have his hand on me was perfectly marvelous. I’d never been so moved by human touch before. It had always been to correct or instruct, never to simply be and caress. 

I sighed and let my knee fall out of the slit in my dressing gown, I lightly traced where his hand had been and closed my eyes, trying to recreate the memory in my mind. 

_God, Claire._

How utterly pathetic. 

A sharp rap at my door brought me to my senses and I covered up in haste. In Victorian England, even table legs were covered lest they lead to impropriety thoughts. For this man to openly touch my leg was obscene. And yet. I liked it. 

“Coming, mother.” I sighed and bounced over to the door and opened it swiftly. But it wasn’t Julia Beauchamp who was leaning boldly in my doorway like a cat. 

I put a hand over my mouth and instantly tried to cover up my chest as my dressing gown had fallen lower in my hasty flounce to the door. 

“Jesus. H. Christ.” 

Jamie’s eyes gleamed, he had changed and cut a clean figure in a black coat with his comfortable white shirt open at the collar and his suspenders and brown breeches. The only thing missing was the cap. 

“Not quite, Sassenach. Most people call me Jamie.” He smirked. 

That damn smile, that damn dimple at the corner of his mouth that twitched when he looked at me. 

For a moment, I caught a hint of surprise and hunger as he looked upon me. 

“You nearly frightened me to death, you bloody bastard.” 

I snatched a blanket off my bed and covered up from the cold blast of air from the open door. 

“How’d you get my cabin number anyway? I didn’t tell you that.” 

Jamie shrugged and thumbed his suspenders nervously, “Aye… well, ye’ve got a maid… Andreea? She’s friends with a pal of mine and told me she ken you’d be back here.” 

_Where else would I be?!_

I hadn’t meant to snip at him as much as I did, but then again it wasn’t every day that a strange young, handsome man showed up at my doorstep right as I was getting ready for bed. 

_Most inappropriate_ , I could hear Mother’s voice chiding me now. 

“Sorry, I’ll leave if ye want to sleep, I didna ken…” 

“No!” I interrupted. “I’m not tired.” 

Jamie smiled again and ducked inside the cabin, closing the door slightly behind him. His face dropped close to mine as he whispered in my ear and I felt the rush of a thousand goosebumps down my back and neck. I fought off the urge to grab his head and press my lips to his chiseled cheek. 

“How’d ye like to come to a real party, Sassenach?” 

My heart hit the roof of my chest cavity and I was not in control of my body or my mouth when I blurted out, 

“God yes.” 

  
  


.............

Here's where the real fun starts. Let the smutfest begin! 


	9. The Bodhran Reel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Romeo take me somewhere we can be alone  
> I'll be waiting, all that's left to do is run   
> You be the prince and I'll be the princess   
> It's a love story, baby just say yes 
> 
> *I may be listening to this on repeat and that may have influenced this chapter*

“I’ll give ye five minutes to get … decent.” Jamie looked at me sideways and smirked again as he backed out of the door and closed it gently behind him. 

My dinner churned wildly in my stomach, what had I just agreed to? 

I slapped my cheeks in the mirror but they were already pink, in vanity I spritzed myself with more rose water and dove into my closet to find something suitable. Noting Jamie’s plain outfit I knew I needed to dress unassumingly. 

I had nothing to wear that wouldn’t stick out like a sore thumb. 

“I ken it’s bad to rush a woman, but Sassenach…. Are ye okay in there?” Jamie’s voice sounded low and urgent. 

“One second!” 

Damn. It would have to do. 

I opened the door and wrapped a white shawl around my shoulders. I tried to blend in, I really did. The simplest dress I had was a light blue silk from Paris with an angora white shawl my grandmother had given me. 

“Holy Mary.” Jamie turned and let out a low whistle at me. 

I laughed, my head fell back, curls messy. 

“Too much?” 

“Fabric? Yes.” Jamie said quickly, he was leaning on the railing and quickly took the cigarette out of his mouth and extinguished it. “Sorry. I dinna ken to mean it….” 

His face flushed horribly red and he stammered apologetically, “I only meant it as ye’ll need to move around a bit, Sassenach. So I’m glad ye picked something a bit more free than yer fancy smock, eh?” 

I giggled, he was adorable. I hated the way he smoked but I found his mannerisms nervous and endearing as he ran his fingers through his hair again. 

“I like a lass who can breathe, eh?” 

I had no idea as to what he was referring to and my face said as much. I locked the cabin door behind me and sidled up next to him on the rail. 

“There’ll be dancing,” Jamie backed away from me quickly, bowed low to the ground and took my hand, spinning me into a close embrace before dipping me down. My mouth was open to protest but I smiled instead. 

“And I daresay we’ll see if ye can hold down cheap beer and warm drams at that,” Jamie made a show of kissing my hand, this time he turned the hand over and placed a thoughtful kiss upon my inner wrist. 

I melted into a puddle inside as he tugged me behind him and we raced down the deck. Usually I would be mortified at the thought of slipping out so late, but tonight I laughed as my hair ran wind in the wind behind me. 

The sound of bagpipes was strident against the hot air in the below chambers of the third class. I knew not where we were or how we got there, all I know is I held Jamie’s hand as we ran together into the darkness. I had memorized the feeling of his hand in mine, the callouses and soft patches near his thumbs. The ones that had caressed my leg not even an hour ago now entangled with mine. I could feel his heartbeat through his palm and it was racing, not necessarily due to the rush of activity. 

There was a raucous reel playing on the bagpipes, whistles and bodhran drum being thrummed emphatically loud. Among the whoops and hollers, there was a vine of people, men and women of all ages, spinning and whirling together on the main deck floor. On the corners, old men played checkers on whiskey barrels and a few children ran back and forth in the dizzying mix. The area was rank of hot beer and cigar and pipe smoke, the latter of which smelled excessively sweet and spicy at the same time. 

I was in love with the chaos and entirely overwhelmed. Jamie tugged me in front of him and proudly introduced me to a lad named Jacob and another man I saw canoodling with Andreea who was only too happy to see me there, albeit shocked. 

“Need anything, ma’am?” 

I shook my head, “Not at all. And it’s Claire. Please.” 

She nodded and went back to sticking her tongue down the bearded man’s throat in a way that made me blush. 

Jamie put his head close to mine so I could hear over the music. 

“Would it be alright if I asked ye to dance wi me?” 

I blinked at him. 

“Now?” 

“Well next June sounds good to me, but yes!” Jamie’s eyes twinkled at me and he bowed halfway again, in the space that was humming with life it was all he could do in the present circumstance. 

“Now or never, Sassenach. The Bodhran Reel,” Jamie yelled over the music. 

“I don’t know how!” I yelled back. 

“Neither do I, just follow me.” Jamie nodded and extended his hand, “We’ll have to be close though, I dinna object. Do ye, Claire?” 

He looked at me seriously, his blue eyes looking deep into mine the same way as when he asked me if I loved Frank. 

“I don’t mind.” I said softly, he couldn’t have heard me well but he smiled slowly. 

“Aye.” 

Reaching out to me, Jamie put his large hand around my waist and pulled me close. Very close. The small of my lower back was in the palm of his hand and he pulled me to him so that my belly touched his belt. He smiled again and my fear dissipated. I was close enough to see the small bit of stubble on his adam’s apple move slightly as he swallowed and pressed me close. I rested one hand on his chest, near his suspenders on the left shoulder and felt my legs go slightly weak as my fingers lay directly on a plate of pure steel. Artist or no, he had definitely lived an active life at one point 

Before I knew it we were twirling and I held on for dear life as he switched hands and intermingled in a trade-off of dancer partners before I was swung back around and flush against Jamie once more. I bit my lips as he accidentally tripped on my left foot. 

“Sorry, Sassenach!” His eyes grew wide with horror as he yelled over the music. 

“I’ll get you for that,” I hissed, next time we were twisted around in a circle with each other, spinning and holding hands. 

“I’d like to see ye try.” Jamie smirked at me and laughed as my face flushed. 

I couldn’t handle this madness of a man but I was getting really sick of him making comments and then watching me gape for air like a fish out of water. I had never before been spoken to in such a manner. 

“Ye look verra bonny tonight, Sassenach.” 

“Thank you.” I turned under his arm and we were back to back holding hands for a second, long enough for him to whisper in my ear as I turned my head towards the gentlemen playing checkers. 

“Earlier, too. I could barely take my eyes off ye.” 

We spun apart again and my heart was doing its own gig, not in rhythm to the bodhran drum. 

“Charming,” I said as he came close again, dancing with another girl younger than me with a red flower in her hair. “That’s how you get all the ladies, is it?” 

Jamie’s face smiled but then darkened slightly as he got stuck in another turn with the girl’s friend. Coming around back to me, his nose was almost to mine, his eyes serious. 

“Lassies? Maybe. But you and I ken that’s ‘no what I’m after.” 

I scoffed, trying to hide my sudden discomfort at how intimate we’d become in such a short time. And how natural it felt. 

“And how do I ‘ken’ what you’re after, James Fraser?” I toyed with my hair before taking his hand again, it had come round my ear and was caught in my eye from the last spin. 

“A woman, ‘no a lassie.” 

I blushed and remained silent for the rest of the dance, which was only twenty more seconds before the pipes hit their last refrain and the bagpipes quieted down in a giant exhale of relief from the musician. 

“And am I?” 

Jamie pretended not to know what I was saying. 

“Are ye what?” 

I rolled my eyes and went over to the table near Andreea, now watching a larger Irishman arm wrestle the man she was making out with in a show of masculine domination. 

Grabbing two large pints of beer, I gave one to Jamie who looked smirky again and I wanted to wipe the smile off his face. 

“Bottom’s up.” I said, raising my glass to him. 

I had never had beer before in my life, apart from a wee sip at a party when I was twelve and my mother wasn’t looking. It was warm and tangy and dark all in one, to be fair… it was god-awful. But I looked Jamie right in his bright blue eyes and downed the entire glass in one go. 

“Jesus, have a bone to pick do ye, Sassenach?” 

“Thirsty work.” I chided him for lying to me. 

Jamie took a slow sip of his and nodded. 

  
“Another?” I asked, nodding to the center of the deck as couples started lining up for another reel. 

“Aye.” Jamie grinned, wiping a bead of sweat off his forehead and into his auburn curl with the back of his hand.

Jamie and I squared up with each other and waited when, to my horror, the musicians started playing a slow waltz. I looked up at Jamie, he didn’t miss a beat and simply gave me a half-nod before placing his hand on my waist and leading me into the movement. 

This dance I knew, but I had never before danced it so close… or with someone I cared about. The steps felt new to me and I tripped slightly over my feet, not aided by the fact I had just downed a pint of warm lager. 

“Careful, Sassenach.” Jamie warned in a playful tone, “One would think ye dinna belong here in third class if ye cannae hold yer pints down.” 

“Hush.” I scolded, breathing in deeply as he swung me around before bringing me in close, my skirt billowed out and then collapsed against his pant leg as he drew me to himself. 

My arms went cold with the feeling of chills and I swallowed the reaction away as I tried to look into his face without blushing harder. 

Jamie’s hands were holding mine and, cautiously, I rested my head on his chest as we swayed slowly around the deck. I could hear his heartbeat under his worn shirt pocket, stained with ink and time. I knew I was not the only one moved by our proximity. 

His pulse was loud but quickened when I rested my head down. 

“Ye are.” 

I looked up at Jamie, the light of the flickering oil lamps and electric lanterns illuminated his face, glistening with emotion and pensive thought. 

“A woman.”

Jamie clarified, clearing his throat slightly. 

“I dinnae ken everything about ye, Claire. But I ken you’re amazing.” 

I rested my head on his chest so as not to look at his beautiful eyes that were beckoning to me to fall dangerously close to being infatuated with him. 

“I ken you’re kind. And smart. And funny. And hurt.” 

Jamie’s voice rumbled in his chest as he lowered it even further. 

“I ken you’re stronger than ye think, Sassenach.”

There was a long silence between us, I had no words to form to fill the space between my aching heart and his. 

“And when I’m drowning?” 

Jamie held me tighter and I felt his lips brush my hair as he inhaled deeply. 

“I’ll always be there to jump in after ye. Always.” 

I didn’t know if we had forever or just that moment. But I knew that all at once, it was enough. I closed my eyes and let the feeling of him surround me as we slowly danced to the music. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
.........

I... I need a moment. I'm having the feels. 


	10. The Scotch Pearls

  
  


I didn’t know what it was about him, but Jamie captivated every inch of my brain until there was nothing left to focus on but him. His walk, his smile, the way his eyes slanted slightly up at the ends like a cat, the way his ears stuck out just a little bit so I could see the light behind them when he looked down at me in his arms. 

It felt like the most natural thing in the world to be there. 

I had had quite a lot to drink now. Standing next to Jamie, I put an arm around his neck and leaned into him slightly as he talked animatedly with Jacob and Andreea and her man, Cosmin, I had now met. Also a bald man named Gunnar paused by our group to take off his hat to Jamie in a knowing fashion. 

Jamie cackled, “Thank ye kindly, sir.” 

Gunnar nodded in secrecy and rushed on, head down like a little walrus flopping to its home. I realized with some alarm that it was now 1 o’clock in the morning. 

The clock chimed out in the hall as the ship took a small lurch, barely noticeable by anyone except me who was not in any way shape or form used to taking in ether. 

I stumbled slightly and found myself, much to Jamie’s amusement, sat right down in his lap. I put a hand on his chest to steady myself and looked up into his face in mild shock at the movement and quick embrace to catch me. 

“Oh dear.” 

“Sassenach, ye alright?” 

Damn that solid shoulder, damn to hell the way his chest hair poked out of his open collar in a light smattering of auburn curls. Damn to hell that little birthmark on his collarbone I could now see with my face so close to his lithe body. 

Did he bathe before tonight? He must have, although my nose was full of the spice of tobacco and vanilla coming from the gentlemen across from us, I also smelled fresh pine soap and the faint smell of Jamie underneath it. 

“I’m fine….” I lied. 

I wasn’t sure I could stand even if I’d wanted to, I was dead on my feet and definitely loving how close I was to him. On his lap, as I was, I noticed as his hand pulled me closer to him around my hips and pulled me back into him a little, unsurely at first. I reacted with a small sigh of comfort and let him hold me there. Resting my head against his neck, I heard his heart pound and felt the sure firmness of something under me as he shifted his weight and brushed his thumb against my waist over the silk of my dress, his hand around the smallest part near my side. 

It suddenly occurred to me that nothing but a thin layer of silk lay between my skin and his hand in a very compromising position. I didn’t move. In fact, I almost stopped breathing to make sure the moment stayed for as long as humanly possible. I was fairly certain the angora wrap from my grandmother was pressed against something indecent as it lay between me and him. 

I fairly trembled in excitement. 

I had never put much thought into being with a man in that way. As a good Victorian girl I knew it MUST be done eventually upon marriage, but I didn’t quite know much beyond the mechanics and subsequent need for child bearing. This was altogether different from the dreaded talks I had had with Mother as my marriage was fast approaching. 

I had saved my virginity for marriage, I had no idea if Frank had, most likely he had not. It never crossed my mind as anything other than something I would do out of duty. 

And yet. 

Here I was, two days into knowing this perfect stranger and letting him envelop me in his arms and actually enjoying it! I felt a twinge of guilt that I had never felt this way with my intended spouse, but this was different. Maybe it was the late hour, maybe it was the alcohol I had over-consumed in an attempt to steady my dizzying head from the reckless choices I was making. But I wanted him. Badly. 

I inhaled the air near his chest, breathing in the warm feeling of his exhale as he breathed out shakily, Cosmin smirked at the two of us. 

“Would you want me to take you back to first class, ma’am?” Andreea offered meekly, yawning as she did so. 

“No, no I’m perfectly fine. I’ll find my way.” I nodded sharply and went to stand up. Jamie kept hold of my hand to steady me. 

“Lovely evening, all.” I said, noticing I was slurring my words juuuust a tad. 

_ Fucking hell what was in that stuff?  _

“I’ll see her safe home,” Jamie cleared his throat and grabbed his coat quickly covering his front as I abandoned my place upon his lap. 

“Come, Sassenach, some air will do ye good.” 

He took my hand and led me out into the night air. 

It was brisk and chilly and did sober me up a bit. At least I could see straight, albeit still feeling like my feet were on two floating clouds that had a mind of their own. 

“Come Josephine in my flying machine, going up… we go….” 

I started signing a tune lightly, swinging from rail to rail as we walked. 

Jamie smirked at me again, his right cheek dimple catching the moonlight. He was so tall. He ran his hands through his hair and his beautiful fingers caught and tamed the wild locks flying about in the nippy early spring night. 

How much longer did we have until everyone tore us apart? This bliss was wonderful and melodic but impossible all the same. 

Suddenly, my heart broke. I stopped at the railing and looked out across the vast darkness. 

“Claire?” 

I hastily wiped away the tears that sprung into my eyes. 

_ Please, please don’t look at me right now.  _

“A star. A shooting star.” I raised a hand to point and my God, there was one. 

A brilliant streak across the sky and a fizzle out into nothingness. The ache in my chest came back with a vengeance. 

“Supposed to make a wish, aye?” Jamie asked quietly. 

“I guess,” I sniffed as my nose started to run, both from the emotions and from the cold. “What would you wish for?” 

Jamie saw me shiver and took his overcoat off. Putting the big coat around my shoulders, he pulled me in closer and looked into my eyes, his own vast pools of heartache. 

“Something I cannae have.” 

I grabbed Jamie’s hand and held it. I longed to pull him closer, to hug him tightly to beg him to make this last before we, too, fizzled out like a sputtering flame on a candle. But I didn’t move. 

Jamie pressed my hand back three times and twirled me around causing me to almost fall over. 

“Come on, Sassenach. I’ve got to get ye to bed before ye crash here and I’ll have to carry ye.” 

I protested indignantly, “Excuse me, sir. I am not inebriated in the slightest.” 

“Aye, and pigs fly, do they?” 

“Jamie.” 

“Aye?” 

“Can I ask you a question?” 

I put out my hands and stepped one foot in front of the other like I was on a balance beam, afraid to meet his gaze. 

“I’ve a feeling yer going to if I like it or ‘no.” 

I grinned, “Maybe.” 

“Alright, then.” 

“Will you draw me?” 

Jamie paused and stopped walking, this was not the question he was expecting. 

“Aye… d’ye want me to then? A portrait?” 

I nodded and grabbed onto his hand again, the night air was sobering me up but I still had the need to be close. 

“A good one, come to my cabin. I want to show you something I want to wear.” 

He nodded but didn’t speak. Time was a cruel mistress and tonight, our time was almost over. 

Aside from a portrait, there was no need for me to be in contact with him according to anyone else. I didn’t need a reason to see him again, but the others might have asked. 

I wasn’t scared to be alone with him, both of us knew our place and that was becoming painfully clear. 

I unlocked the door and let us in, hurrying over to the little green safe in the cabinet, I entered the combination and took out the blue velvet bag, handing it to Jamie. 

“Well, open it.” I urged. 

There was a strange look upon his face as he slipped the long strand of baroque pearls out of the bag and held them. 

“Where,” his voice was low and hoarse, “where’d ye get these?” 

“Frank bought them, supposedly they’re a wedding present.” 

_ What was wrong with them? Shit. Did I have to mention Frank?  _

Jamie cursed low in Gaelic and shook his head. 

“I cannae do it.” 

“What?” 

“I said I cannae do the portrait, t’wouldn’t be right, Sassenach.” 

“Why?” I was taken aback and mildly offended. 

“These belonged to my mother.” 

My mouth fell open, “Oh… I didn’t know. Frank said he got them….” 

Jamie bit at his mouth as if tasting something bitter. 

“Aye, I ken where he got them. Murtagh and I tried to buy them back but he outbid us. That’s where I recognized him from, I ken he looked familiar.” 

“Take them.” I felt awful, holding the bag out to Jamie, I pleaded. “Please.” 

“I cannae do that, Claire. They’re ‘no mine to take.” 

“But they’re mine, please.” 

Jamie paused a moment. 

“I have nothing to give ye for them, Claire.” 

He continued slowly, holding out his hands. 

“Just my empty hands and-” 

I grabbed them both and, putting the bag in them, kissed his hands as I held them together. 

“Not empty now.” 

“But Frank…” 

“I’ll deal with Frank,” I said surely. “Please. For me, Jamie.” 

Jamie smiled, his face overcome with emotion.

“Aye, I’ll draw ‘ye, Claire. Wearing them if ye want. But,” 

He pressed the bag into my hands. 

“I dinnae wish for ye to get in trouble on the likes of me. Nor do I need yer pity, Sassenach.” 

I felt a wave of angst ride through me at his stubbornness. 

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean...” 

He smirked but didn’t reply, I could see he was hurt but too kind to speak on it further. 

Jamie closed his eyes in regret and stepped away from me, half-bowing. 

“I better be off, Claire. I dinnae wish to ruin yer reputation being seen wi’ me this late.” 

Jamie walked towards the door to the cabin and opened it slowly. 

“I’ll find you tomorrow.” I said surely, following him. 

He swallowed before he answered, “Aye.” 

One more step and he would be out of sight into the dark and I would be alone with my regret. 

_ Damn.  _

“Jamie.” 

“Claire.” His voice was kind, his beautiful face half-cloaked with the darkness outside my cabin. 

I had nothing to say and it killed me. 

_ Don’t go. _

“Goodnight. Thanks for the lovely evening… and for seeing me back and all.” 

“No trouble at all. Goodnight.” He took my hand and pressed it to his lips once more before walking away in the dark. 

My heart sank as I closed the cabin door. 

What was I thinking? Offering him the pearls like that alone would just fix the fact that I was given his family heirloom as a wedding present? Of course he would see that as an act of pity. 

_ Damnit, Claire. _

There was a hesitant knock at the door and I opened it, still having not moved from closing it. 

“I’m sorry, I-” 

Jamie’s face was sad and eager at the same time, he suddenly came towards me, his tongue jutting out to lick his lips lightly before his hand was in my hair and he had me pressed up against himself and the cabin door behind me. I still clung to the doorknob with a frozen hand. My heart hit the roof of my ribcage as I lifted my face, my mouth seeking his. But he did not oblige. 

Jamie closed his eyes and took a sharp, shaking inhale of air, pressing his forehead to my own. His straight nose touched mine as he drew back slowly and opened his eyes. 

“Goodnight, Claire.” 

I felt him stiffen and his chest tighten as he forced himself backwards and slipped off into the night before I could even let go of the ornate door knob in my hand. 

I let out a sigh of relief and disappointment and looked after him but he did not come back. 

................


	11. Stolen Kisses Make Pretty Lies

“I was hoping you would come to me last night,” Frank said sourly, as we ate breakfast together the next morning on his private deck. 

I cringed slightly as I sipped my tea, “I’m sorry, I was tired.” 

To be fair, I woke up with a splitting headache, regret and The Bodhran Reel stuck in my head. 

“Seems like your exertions in third class really wore you out.” Frank said pointedly. 

I set my teacup down harder than I meant to in the saucer. 

“I’m not sure what you mean.” 

“Don’t lie, Claire. People talk. My manservant saw you and that… that _Scott_ ,” Frank hissed the words at me like poison air, “canoodling and doing only God knows what.” 

“I’m not someone you can command, Frank. I’m your fiancé.” 

“My fiancé.” Frank got up and walked over to where I was sitting across from him. “My fiancé would do well to remember she is my wife if by future-tense alone and should behave as such. If I catch you with him again, Claire, trust me….” 

Frank swatted the teacup out of my hand and I felt the hot liquid pour all over my dress as it smashed against the deck with a clatter and a crack. I drew in my breath sharply, but didn’t dare move. Frank’s face hovered above my own and his quiet anger shook me to my core. 

“You and your mother will be penniless on the street, do you understand me?” 

I nodded as angry tears burst from my eyes, my lap was uncomfortably hot with the spilled tea all over me. 

Frank’s footsteps had no sooner faded down the walk than I fell to pieces, Andreea helped me up and to my cabin to change quickly before anyone saw. As I stood there, shaking and getting my tea-stained clothes off of me, a sharp rap was heard at the door and Mother came in. 

“Andreea, tea.” 

The girl curtsied and ran away, Mother looked me over, her eyes glancing over the spot of red on my chest from where the hot tea had spilled. She rolled her blue eyes and turned me around with a spin of her deft hand. 

“You’re not to see that boy again, Claire.” Mother’s words were pinched as the corset she tightened around my bosom with little thought to any discomfort or injury from the hot liquid. Each word was punctuated by her whipping the laces tighter than ever on my bodice before rummaging through the closet to pick out a blue and white day dress and tossing it at me. 

“I forbid it.” 

“Stop it, Mother.” 

“Our situation is precarious, Claire. You know that. Your father left us with nothing but bad debts hidden by the good name of Beauchamp. You will marry Frank Randall to ensure our survival.” 

“It’s not fair!” I cried out, my tears turning to anger as they burned in my eyes. 

“Of course it isn’t fair dear. We’re women. We’ve been between a rock and a hard place since Adam and Lord knows if it doesn’t still work that way. We deal. We choose the smart decision, not the one we make with our heart.” 

Julia Beauchamp’s eyes burned into mine and then softened as she traced a hand on my cheek. I can’t remember a time where my mother’s touch felt a comfort to me, but it wasn’t any comfort then. 

“Now do something to make yourself prettier, we have a tour with the captain today on deck.” 

……………………………………………………………………..

“Mister Murray,” I began slowly. 

The wind whipped around that day as we began our tour and a stray hair got caught in my mouth. 

“Forgive me. I did the sum in my head and with the number of lifeboats times the capacity you mentioned… forgive me, but it seems like there are not enough for everyone on board.” 

“Goodness, you don’t miss a thing do you.” Mr. Murray smiled sadly, “Less than half actually. In fact I had twice the amount of lifeboats on deck but it was thought…. By some… to look too, shall we say, cluttered. I was overruled.” 

“Waste of deck if you ask me,” Frank jutted his hands in his pockets and walked on ahead of Mother and me, “everyone knows the Titanic is unsinkable.” 

“Rest assured, Claire. I’ve built us a good ship here, she’s all the life boat you’ll need.” Mr. Murray nodded onwards kindly, “The next stop is the engine room.” 

Mother and Frank went on without me and I stopped at the railing a moment. Before I knew it, a tall man in a bowler hat and trench coat grabbed me by the arm and pulled me into a deck that must have been used as an exercise gymnasium. The smell of pine surrounded me again and I bit back a scream of surprise. 

“Claire, I’m sorry. I had to see you.” 

_Fucking hell._

Jamie took the hat off and rustled his hair in agitation. 

“No, Jamie. No. Before you say anything I- I’m engaged. I simply can’t see you anymore.” 

I turned to go but Jamie caught my arm and I ripped it out of his grasp. 

The look on his face kept me from running out of the room to join the others. It was as if I’d punched him in the gut. 

“I’m marrying Frank. I love him.” 

“Claire,” Jamie said surely as if I hadn’t spoken at all, “yer no picnic. Yer a spoilt little brat even, but under that yer the most astounding woman I’ve ever known and-” 

“Jamie, I can’t really.”

I turned to pull away again but he held out his hands and came closer to me, so close I could see the sweat break out on his brow and hear the urgency in his voice as it broke a little. 

“No, Claire. Let me get this out- I’m not an idiot. I ken how the world works.” 

Jamie sniffed sharply and wiped his nose with the back of his hand, eyes darting over my shoulder to the windows beyond. 

“I’ve got ten dollars to my name and nothing to offer ye. I ken. But I’m too involved now. Ye jump in, I follow. I cannae turn away not seeing you right. I’m too involved, Claire.” 

His voice trembled slightly as he lowered it, “That’s all that I want, Claire. To ken yer alright.” 

I didn’t know whether to smack him for insolence or to kiss him, but my heart shattered with what I had to do. 

“I’m fine. I’ll be fine.” I repeated myself to sound more confident. 

“Will ye?” Jamie’s eyes softened and his agitated tone lowered into one of deep sorrow as he looked into my eyes. His hand came up to lightly hover over my cheek before brushing a strand of hair away from it and behind my ear. 

“I dinnae think so. They’ve got ye trapped, Claire. Yer going to die if ye don’t break free. Maybe not right away because yer strong, but eventually….” 

Jamie stopped, the thought seemed too great for him to bear. He put his hand back above his head and gestured loosely before letting it fall limp to his side. 

“Sooner or later that fire that I love about ye, Claire...It’s going to go out just like we saw with the shooting star. Just like I saw the other night, ye ken? With ye over the back of the ship?” 

His eyes were pensive now, holding me to them with their intensity. 

There it was, the witchcraft of his eyes causing me to be just as much under his spell as he was of mine. I remembered Mother’ words. 

“It’s not up to you to save me, Jamie.” I said softly. 

“Yer right,” Jamie looked at my lips as I spoke, his hand raised to touch them but he took his hand away just as quickly. “Only ye can do that, Claire.” 

His hand went to my face again before he dropped it and squared his jaw. 

Suddenly Jamie’s face darkened and he spoke in Gaelic, his eyes darting away from me. 

“Mo chridhe?” I said slowly, repeating the part I heard. 

“My heart.” Jamie swallowed anxiously and half-smiled. “I said ye were my heart, Sassenach, and it was breaking.” 

My mouth fell open and I didn’t know what to say, but his words cut me to the core. 

Jamie’s voice was urgent again, like a sob bursting up from his own chest. 

“Claire. I would have followed ye to the end, ye do know that, right? Now that I ken who ye are, I cannae just turn a dear ear to yer drowning. Ye have to want it to be different though, ye have to say the word and I’ll help. I cannae do it without ye asking.” 

I wanted to kiss him then, to throw everything to the wind. The wedding, the fortune, the comfort of being Frank’s wife. I knew it was foolhardy. I saw the ending in shambles before it even began and I knew it would be the death of me and the downfall of life as I knew it. 

Our voices had echoed around the room long enough. 

Incredibly sorry and full of self-loathing I looked at him then, his heart openly in his hands and ready for me to take aim and stab it with my words. 

But I was sick of hurting and hurting him. Sick and tired of aristocratic bullshit and sick of pretending to be someone and something I was not. I didn’t want scalding tea spilled over my clothes, or threats. I wanted stolen kisses, pretty lies and warm pints of lager with bagpipes screaming in my ears to drown out the melancholy in my heart. 

I looked at Jamie and my heart softened, my will to brace myself against him bent like a tree until it was just a wispy branch, tickling the corners of his mouth into a smirk. A hail Mary to the pomp and circumstance I was born into and a welcoming kiss of the elements, earth and air together in the human form of this beautifully broken Scotsman. 

Without hesitation, I reached forward and grabbed his neck with my right hand, holding his beautiful cheek with my left. I leaned forward and I kissed him softly, sinking into the warmth of his lips as they returned the kiss with as much pent up frustration and desire as I felt grow in my heart in response. 

I didn’t know kisses could feel this way. All thoughts left my heart apart from the vague sense of his gentle exhale, no feeling in the world existed apart from this one right here. 

All I knew is that I wanted to stop hurting and to stop hurting him and this was the only way I knew how. 

I broke away from the balm that was soothing both our souls and backed up quickly, “I’m sorry. I have to go back, leave me alone.” 

Tears blinding my every step, I ran out onto the deck and left him behind in the empty room. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


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sooooo.... about Frank.... I think we're all on the same page here.... :P

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for the love you've shown this fic! I am seriously humbled and grateful for each and every one of you. Hope this is helping with some of the winter blues we're all feeling right now. xx Much love.


	12. Come Josephine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Come Josephine in my flying machine  
> Going up she goes! Up she goes!  
> Balance yourself like a bird on a beam  
> In the air she goes! There she goes!  
> Up, up, a little bit higher  
> Oh! My! The moon is on fire  
> Come Josephine in my flying machine  
> Going up, all on, Goodbye!
> 
> \- Ada Jones (June 1, 1873 – May 2, 1922)

Sometimes I wonder what my life would have been like if I had never met Jamie. If I’d never caught a glimpse of that beautiful boy from the balcony that spring day. Would I have gone civilly to a life of duty and my own demise, or would I have garnered the strength to run away on my own? 

I hoped he’d always remember me like that, those fleeting glimpses of hope and sunshine that kept popping into my mind as I walked solemnly behind my mother and Frank on the rest of the tour. Indeed, the rest of the day I was in a daze. 

It was an agonizing daydream to think of our first… and last… kiss. If only I had kissed him sooner, if only he had given into temptation last night and we had both lost ourselves in the moment of shared passion burning down the memory into a wondrous crimson ember that would keep me warm for years to come. My one moment, my fleeting indiscretion in the gym would be the one dream keeping me awake for the rest of my life. 

_Nothing lasts forever_ , I thought to myself as tears kept rising to the surface of my honey brown eyes. 

Mother noticed my running nose and wistful, deep sighs but didn’t say a word. Frank wouldn’t have noticed if I had shaved my head bald and danced like the women of the moulins in the red district of Paris. 

Jamie’s eyes were in the ocean surrounding us, everywhere I turned I saw the deep churning blue waters of a soul wracked with grief. 

_Sweet Genie in the sky… Jesus Christ… Holy Mother…._

Let him remember me in the smiles and laughter, in my golden day dress and angora shawl. I tried to romanticize it but I failed miserably. All images I could conjure up of a fond farewell were ruined utterly by the gray-blue choppy ocean around me. The sea was a deep chasm beneath our pitiful existence on this God-forsaken ship that looked more like a matchstick in the middle of the Atlantic than anything of grandeur. 

I tried to think of the things I hated about Jamie. 

I hated his smirk. The cocky attitude of the whole artist persona was really annoying. The way one of those God-awful cigarettes hung off his lower lip as he smiled at me, teeth whiter than they had reason to be after I saw what he put them through. I hated how he threw caution to the wind and ran with the reckless abandon of a person not yet acquainted with the world. 

Each of his sins had a remedy though, he was extremely talented as an artist. I still hated the cigarettes but had to admit his smile was the nicest I had seen. He was acquainted with the world enough to know that ten dollars in his pocket wasn’t enough for a girl like me. Or was it? 

He did not come to me that day, did not seek me out. Each hour that passed sunk me into a deeper lethargy of regret and depression. 

At lunch with the ladies, I listened to Mother complain about the intricacies of wedding planning. I watched at a nearby table as a mother chastised her little daughter, a girl of no more than seven, to sit up straight and hold her teacup appropriately. Chin up, chest out, don’t smile too much, smile more so people don’t think you’re sad. Laugh when appropriate, but not too much. Don’t show what you feel, feel even less than you show. 

It was too much to bear. 

“I can’t breathe.” I said sharply, abruptly interrupting Julia Beauchamp’s exposition of the horrors of picking floral arrangements. 

“Whatever’s the matter, Claire?” 

I set my teacup down and began tugging at the laces of my corset under my blue blouse. 

“Claire!” Mother was absolutely horrified. 

“Can’t breathe.” I kept saying, over and over. The room felt like it was getting smaller, I was dizzy. 

A warm hand was on my arm, pulling me up and guiding me outside. 

“Och lass, ye’ll expire straightaway with a corset too tight. Julia dear, we’ll be right outside, ye ken?” 

Mrs. Fitz’s face was slightly alarmed but she smiled over her shock and took me carefully by the hand tugging me to the sweet relief of the alcove outside of the private deck. 

“Now lass.” 

The older woman set her hands on her hips and then took me by the shoulders, “Now I ken this goes deeper than stays, eh?” 

I nodded, gripping at my chest and trying to inhale sharply. 

“Slowly now, ye don’t wish to actually pass out!” 

“I can’t…..” 

“Can’t breathe? I heard ye.” 

Her hand pressed my arm lightly, “Now do ye want this life yer mother keeps going on about?” 

My eyes widened, I’d never heard a lady talk that way. 

“Of course… I-” 

“Don’t lie to me, Claire. I’ll ken well enough, I’m a Mam myself, love.” 

I shook my head and burst into an ugly sob. 

Mrs. Fitz enveloped me in a large hug and squeezed me to her with as much love as I’d ever felt from an older woman. 

“Go.” 

She uttered the single word with emphasis knowing I would catch her meaning. 

“Go, and dinnae look back, Claire.” 

I gawked at her. 

“Ye’ll always regret a love ye never chased, dear. And I ken Jamie loves ye. More than that twat yer marrying. Dinnae have regrets, Claire.” 

To my surprise, Mrs. Fitz’s own eyes were full of tears and in them, I saw a younger girl crying with me. I could tell this went deeper than mere empty words with her. 

“The bow o’ the ship, I saw him there. Go. Now.” 

I nodded and hugged her as tightly as I could, “Thank you.” 

The ribbons of my dress flew out behind me as I ran down the whole length of the Titanic with my fears trailing long behind. In my heart, I knew she was right. I ran fast with the desperation of a woman chasing after a moving train even though we were both on the same ship, I had this dreadful feeling Jamie was getting farther from me with each passing mile. 

It was hard to swallow past the growing lump in my throat as I ran and scanned the front of the ship for any sign of Jamie. He wasn’t hard to find, I saw his tall form slumped over the rail on the very tip of the bow looking out over the waves running under our vessel. The wind had blown his auburn curls straight back and I saw his square jaw clenching and unclenching as he surveyed the choppy waters below. 

“Jamie.” My voice sounded meek and I wasn’t entirely sure he heard me as out of breath as I was. 

He instantly stiffened and straightened his broad back, whipping his head up and around to see me, standing there. Panting. Red-faced. My heart in my hands just as his was held out to me that very morning in the gymnasium. 

“I,” I stammered, not quite knowing what to say, “I… changed my mind.” 

A lone tear fell from his left eye and hit the deck in a tiny splash that nobody heard, I wouldn’t have seen it but for the way the sun caught the trail of liquid on his face. His lips twitched into a smile and his eyes soon followed, gleaming at me brightly. Instantly, I crossed the steps between us with one giant leap into his arms. He caught me. I sank my face into his neck and breathed him in deeply, feeling his strong arms wrap around me and hold me to his solid chest. 

Jamie’s voice broke as he uttered two words into my wild hair. 

“Mo chridhe.” 

_My heart._

I felt my own become whole again as I held on tightly, afraid to let him go. 

“You jump, I jump, right?” I whispered into his ear. 

“Aye, Sassenach.” 

Jamie’s chest suddenly rumbled as he chuckled in a low voice. 

“Christ, I’m verra happy to see ye, Sassenach.” 

I closed my eyes and smiled deep into my soul. 

“There’s something I want to show ye.” Jamie spun me around in front of him and held my waist, gesturing onwards with his head to the horizon beyond. 

“Close yer eyes, Sassenach.” 

I did so. 

I felt Jamie’s grip on me tighten as he nudged me forward and we both took a step to the very edge of the bow. I felt him behind me and the cold railing ahead of me but I wasn’t afraid. 

Jamie took my hands, wrapping my fingers into his and held out my arms at my sides until I felt the wind whipping around my body and face. 

“Open them.” 

I caught my breath. At my current position, I could not see the deck or railing so close to me it was cutting into my waist a bit. All I could see was the ocean far below me tossing and churning into a deep blue expanse and the sky above me meeting it at the horizon. There was nothing around us for miles, as far as I could see. 

“Come Josephine in my flying machine, going up she goes. Up she goes.” Jamie’s voice sang softly in my ear as he gently placed a kiss on the back of my neck, his face nestled near my own. 

I was free. It felt exactly like flying. 

Once, as a girl, I swung on a swing so high I felt my stomach lurch at the velocity and temporary loss of gravity on the swing as I hit the highest point. That small jump before the fall that makes your heart jump in your chest. 

I had the same feelings now as Jamie turned my face with one finger and stroked my jaw and neck with his hand, kissing me tenderly as he did so. 

The gentleness of the kiss touched my soul in a way where I knew it wasn’t hesitation or lack of feeling, but a quiet flame. A spark of something greater that he was purposely holding back in all it’s blazing intensity. A gust of wind blew up from the bow and tossed my hair over his face and mixed it with his own golden auburn locks. 

I turned my body to his and wrapped my arms around his neck again, pulling him deeper into me as we kissed, hardly coming apart for anything but a panting gasp of air. As my fingers intertwined around the back of his neck, I braced my stomach for the fall. I then slipped into a deep intimacy with Jamie from which I’d never recover. 

  
  
  
  


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Ooh la la *cue heaving bosoms and breathless panting* ONWARDS SS JAMIECLAIRE


	13. Muse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Draw me like one of your French lassies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dear lord, when I get to heaven  
> Please let me bring my man  
> When he comes tell me that you'll let him in  
> Father tell me if you can  
> Oh that grace, oh that body  
> Oh that face makes me wanna party  
> He's my sun, he makes me shine like diamonds
> 
> -Young and Beautiful, Lana Del Ray

I was never a risk-taker. Nope. Just not me. 

If you asked me to tea next Wednesday, I would start planning my outfit now. If a library book was due a week from today, I would return it tomorrow. You get the picture. 

I had an uncomfortable obsession with order and keeping my own personal life in check that it irritated even my uptight mother. As much as I loved adventure, it was almost predictable what I would be doing with myself at any given point in the day. 

From birth, my life was planned out and I functioned accordingly. 

So what the hell was I doing wrapped up in the arms of a Scottish artist, entwining tongues, bodies and lives with a man I’d just met days prior? 

And the worst part of it was, I loved every second of it. 

Gone was the Claire of duty and dread, here was a new creation. In every sense of the word I was reborn into my true self, ready to take on the world with this handsome stranger at my side. 

Had I known Jamie for twenty minutes or twenty years, it wouldn’t have mattered. All that mattered was that I knew him and he knew me, in every sense of that word. 

I knew I was treading into uncharted waters. 

I drew back from Jamie long enough to stare at him with new eyes, the eyes of a woman deeply in love. 

“Draw me.” 

Jamie’s eyelids were heavy and he blinked slowly at first as if he was intoxicated. He went to draw me in again before answering suddenly. 

“Wait. Now?” 

“Yes.” 

I knew I wouldn’t have the courage to do what I truly wanted to do if I waited. 

“Alright.” 

He had no idea. 

Neither did I, but I didn’t question it. 

Hand in hand we raced back to my cabin in a tandem dance of feet and arms as Jamie twirled me, laughing, each time we rounded a corner and no one was looking. I was dizzy with his hand in mine and only too happy to let him catch my waist and pull me into kiss after kiss as we went on. It was scandalous. Probably the riskiest thing I’d ever done… up to that point. 

My hands shook nervously as I swallowed hard and unlocked my cabin door. Jamie shifted his weight behind me, checking the messenger bag he always carried with him to make sure he had everything he needed for the job. 

He busied himself more than he needed to, and I realized he was as nervous as I was. 

“Is this okay?” I asked carefully, gesturing to the room. No one would bother us here. 

Jamie made a face and nodded, “It’ll do.” 

He winked at me, but could not wink. I discovered Jamie Fraser could only blink, like an awkward and very confused owl when shown daylight. I giggled softly. 

“Of course,” he said affecting a horrible accent of the Paris natives, “I ‘ave ‘ad better studios.” 

“Whorehouses you mean.” 

Jamie laughed, caught off guard by my straightforward response. 

“Aye, I wasna going to say it so boldly, but yes, Sassenach. Cheap food and beer with models tae boot.” 

“And did you sleep with any of them?” I asked the question on my mind.

I had asked him about the girl with the hands before, but nothing this personal.

“D’ye care to know, Sassenach?” 

Jamie’s eyes scanned my face, again unreadable. For someone who was an open book most of the time I couldn’t tell what he was thinking on this subject and it drove me mad. 

_Yes! No….. but also YES._

“Only if you want to tell me,” I said, suddenly demure. I wasn’t sure if I was in a mood to have my heart broken though why should it be? 

I swallowed hard, hoping beyond all hope that this would be just as new for him as it was for me. But he was ridiculously handsome and after his time in Paris… 

Jamie took my hand and kissed it lightly, bringing it to his lips and smirking at the same time. 

“I’ve been wi’ no one, Claire. But I’m ‘no in the business of bedding my models, ye ken?” 

_Oh my God._

Just Jamie uttering the word “bedding” had me blushing furiously and with one so close in the other room… 

“I’m just going to go slip into something I want you to draw me in,” I said weakly. 

Jamie nodded quickly, moving the settee to the middle of the room and pulling up a chair from my dressing table across from it. 

My heart was racing as I shut the door slightly in between my bedroom and main cabin sitting area, leaving it ajar slightly on purpose. A warm flush spread into my cheeks as I did the unthinkable. 

I laid my blue and yellow silk dressing gown on my bed and began undressing myself from the layers of Victorian propriety that separated me from the portrait I actually wanted him to do of me. 

In the small round mirror on the wall opposite me, I looked up into the room behind me and caught the blue of Jamie’s eyes as he watched me for a second before turning away abruptly. 

_Interesting, Mr. Fraser._

He hadn’t seen anything yet. 

…………

I was both shocked and emboldened by my courage as I undressed to my shift and corset and wrapped the dressing gown around my shoulders. Going to the safe in the closet, I entered in the combination with trembling hands. 

Jamie had somewhat composed himself when I came back out although his face was flaming red. He caught a glimpse of me in nothing but my corset and shift and looked questioningly up at my face, his eyes large and round in surprise. 

“I… I had thought…” 

“I want you to draw me like one of your French girls, Jamie.” 

I held out the precious pearls in my hands to him. 

“Wearing this.” 

Jamie opened his mouth and smirked softly to himself as he took the necklace and let his fingers run over the smooth, small baroque beads of uneven texture in his ink-stained hands. 

“Wearing _only_ this.” 

All the color washed from Jamie’s cheeks and he set his jaw before nodding slowly, his smirk returning. 

“Yer a daring woman, Sassenach. I suppose that makes me a lucky man.” 

I laughed and kissed his cheek quickly before turning around expectantly. I let the dressing gown fall down my shoulders all the way and folded it carefully, hanging it over the chair he would draw me from. I took a deep breath, standing only in my corset and shift in front of him, face flaming. 

“Would you mind awfully helping a girl out?” I unclipped my hair and let the curls fall where they would, brushing it to the front with my hands I held it up and exposed my bare neck. 

“No, I wouldn’a mind.” Jamie said softly. 

I wanted...no.... _needed_ him to touch me. It would be easier if we touched. 

Jamie’s hands faltered on the back of my shoulders as he fastened the clasp of his mother’s pearl necklace, his fingers lightly brushing my skin with cautious intentional slowness. 

I turned to face him then, my chest rising and falling with my rapidly increasing heart rate. 

_Good grief._

However would I get through the next part? 

The pearls around my neck had brought me back to myself enough to carefully ascertain how he felt before proceeding. 

“Is it alright, that I-? Wear them?” I asked slowly. 

Jamie’s eyes were transfixed on my face and he swallowed before reaching a hand to lightly touch the pearls settled in against my décolletage. 

“It suits you, Sassenach.” He nodded and smirked again in reassurance, his eyes returning to my face and looking upon it with pleasure. 

“What next?” My heart was pounding as I asked the question, “I’ve never done this sort of thing before. Ever.” 

“I ken,” Jamie looked nervously around trying to focus on the room and the way he had set up the couch and chair. “Dinnae fash.” 

“Either way, I don’t suppose I’ll be needing my corset or shift here.” I began tentatively, my hands suddenly clammy at my sides. 

“Ah,” Jamie uttered under his breath. 

“No, I suppose not. Turn around Sassenach, I suppose I can help… wi’ the laces and such.” 

For the second time, I turned from Jamie’s gaze and caught my breath. 

His initial nervousness seemed gone as he struggled slightly with the laces of my corset. Mother had absolutely drawn them severely that morning over tea after she’d sent Andreea away. 

“Hah!” Jamie let out a triumphant cry as he managed to loosen the last of them and I shifted my shoulders so it fell to the floor. My bare body was thinly veiled from him now and I turned to face him, my eyes scanning his. Jamie’s were a pool of sudden seriousness and he looked at me the way all girls want to be looked at. 

Jamie paused. His hands hovering above my breasts, eyes hungrily scanning my face. He willed them into motion again and untied the small fastener in between them, allowing my shift to slip off my breasts and onto the floor in a heap of very thin muslin. 

I did not cover myself, I stood there. Unashamed, brazen and incredibly scared. Proud of myself for getting this far without bolting for the door and covering up with a thousand layers of silk and taffeta. 

I could almost hear the thoughts running through his head as I turned and saw his eyes busy, deep in thought. Lost in a sinful reverie of youth as he surveyed my body. 

His lips parted slightly and his tongue wet them quickly as he shifted his gaze downwards and away from me. 

“Well?” I said shyly. 

“Surely you’ve seen a naked woman before, James Fraser. You’ve sketched plenty of them.” 

“Aye,” Jamie’s voice was lower than usual and slightly more rough. 

“But never one so … so perfect as you, Claire. An no’ one that’s mine.” 

Keeping mere inches between us, Jamie tenderly placed a kiss on my forehead and touched his own to it, sighing softly as he did so. The muscle in his neck twinged slightly as he pulled back and there was no mistaking his own excitement although he shoved a hand in his pocket and walked to the chair across from the settee. 

“Where do you want me?” 

I was thoroughly enjoying the blush coming up out of his cream colored shirt and spreading over his cheeks. 

“On the bed… I mean, the couch. The couch.” Jamie cringed. 

I laughed, “Why I do believe you’re blushing Monsieur Artist.” 

Jamie bit down on his pencil and looked at me with raised brows at the sudden confidence I had assumed. I had him completely under my spell and I knew it. Savoring each second of him succumbing to my own wills, I smiled shyly.

Jamie sat down… hard. Busying himself with getting out a fresh sheet of parchment, I watched as his nimble fingers quivered upon the clasp on his dark green bag. 

I laid down on the settee as he gave me direction, I wasn’t sure if his distance was on purpose or to hide the fact that he was visibly aroused. 

“Hand like so…. There. Tilt yer head down a little, Sassenach. Keep looking at me here,” Jamie put his penciled hand to his nose. “Yer eyes are the color of whiskey and I want to get them right.” 

I blushed. I always considered them a plain brown but Jamie’s description made me love him all the more. 

“Wi’ wee bits of green in them. Just around the edges, did ye know that, Sassenach?” 

“No I didn’t.” 

Jamie lifted his drawing pad up to his knee and looked at me seriously, I heard him exhale deeply before he began. For a while all I heard was the scratch of the pencil, etching away at my body, my features. I smirked in spite of how fast my heart was racing. Jamie kept looking back at me, his blue eyes taking on different hues from the room around us as he drew his eyebrows together and started to do what he did best. 

I was surprised, but pleased, to see him pull out colored chalk from his bag. He had taken note of my taste for the newest art around the room and was putting it all together into one piece that was absolutely my taste.

After a while, his eyes lit on my bare breasts and down the gentle curve of my stomach. A warm flush crept up his forehead and I giggled. 

“Why I do believe you are blushing, Mister Great Artist.” 

I affected the horrible French accent he played with at the start of our session together. 

“I can’t imagine Monsieur Monet blushing.” 

Jamie chuckled to himself but the blush stayed as he detailed the curves of my body. 

“He does landscapes, Sassenach. Relax yer face now or ye’ll permanently look like the cat with the cream.” 

I bit my lips together to kill the smile that I was feeling spread across them. 

Stifling a giggle, I went back to my serious pose and stared back at him. 

My heart was pounding the whole time, it was the most erotic moment of my life. Up until then at least. 

Jamie’s hair fell into his eyes and he brushed it back, after about half an hour, he smiled and held out the piece of paper to me, nodding at me to come over and look. 

“It’s perfect.” 

I smiled, gathering my dressing robe around me again as I walked over to stand alongside his chair. Still wearing the pearls, I fingered them as I surveyed the finished work. On the piece of paper, I saw a mature and confident young woman before me, hand at my brow gazing at the viewer with a hidden smile, one that Jamie captured perfectly summing up both my infatuation and humor at his work. I loved him there and it was obvious as my eyes sparkled off the page in a way I’d never seen them look before. Happy. Almost at peace. 

“D’ye like it, Sassenach?” 

I nodded and kissed his red curls, taking the picture and setting it down alongside the end table near the settee. 

A hand caught mine. 

Jamie pulled me back to him and I settled onto his lap, my dressing gown falling open over my naked form. With an indeterminate look on his face, Jamie leaned close and kissed me then. Softly pressing his lips to mine, his fingers gently tracing my neckline leaving goosebumps in their wake. 

_Holy God._

“Whatever happened to not bedding your models?” 

“Yer no’ just my model, Sassenach.” Jamie whispered in my ear as he rained kisses on it and down my neck. Pulling back slightly, he looked into my face for a moment staring into my very soul. 

I lost myself in the brilliant blue of his eyes and drowned in the adoration I found there. 

“Yer my muse. I’d like verra much to kiss ye, is that alright?” 

My voice came out in an undignified squeak, “Yes, that’s quite alright.” 

...............................................

Claire's pantaloons on the floor viewing the scene above:  
  
  
  
  



	14. Loving Angels

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I sit and wait, does an angel contemplate my fate?  
> And do they know the places where we go when we're grey and old?  
> 'Cause I have been told that salvation lets their wings unfold  
> So when I'm lying in my bed, thoughts running through my head  
> And I feel that love is dead, I'm loving angels instead
> 
> -Robbie Williams, Angels

It all happened so fast. Something in me cracked. The long fracture of my soul was finally broken in two, my inhibitions gone. 

I had heard a story once of how in Japan, cracks in pottery were filled with gold to bond the pieces together. Instead of being thrown out, their broken parts turned out to be the most beautiful. Jamie was my gold. My entire being was filled with the mere idea of him and it was intoxicating. 

My chains broken, I grabbed him by the shirt and pulled him into me. The kiss was scrambling, deep and passionate, the two of us seeking to own and be owned by the other. 

Jamie picked me up easily and walked clumsily with me in his arms to the conjoining room to the bed. He almost tripped over his boots setting me down and he barely missed pinning me to himself entirely before catching his weight on his forearms. 

Suddenly, his head was in my neck, showering the small cleft between my shoulders with kisses that were fervent in their intensity. His hand slowly, cautiously, slipped into my robe and caressed the side of my breast before his thumb gently pressed into my nipple as he squeezed it slowly. I heard a ragged breath escape his mouth as he broke free from his lips on my neck. 

“Sassenach,” Jamie’s voice sounded almost strangled as he panted in my ear, “I dinnae think I can stop wi’ how badly I want ye.” 

My chest heaved with a shaking breath of my own as I twisted my body and flipped him on his back on the bed with me over him, straddling his torso with my bare legs. My robe was purely decoration at this point, held together only at the waist by the silk ribbon that was in danger of giving out altogether amidst our tumble after each other. 

“Then don’t,” I hiss, biting down on my lower lip as Jamie playfully nipped at the back of my neck, moving my hair aside. 

Everything in my life was order and duty up till this moment, this was for me and Jamie. It was as if my whole life was at a standstill and being so close to him was lighting to the ignition of a machine we didn’t know how to stop. 

Jamie kissed me with such intensity, his hand in my hair, all I could do was to hold on. My hands were helpless at his shoulders and I moaned which only made him kiss me harder. Too drunk in love for tenderness, we were together and apart again in gasping breaths as somehow Jamie lost his shirt in the fray.

My hands grabbed onto his suspenders and worked their way down to his britches, my fingers working in a furious scuffle at the buttons at his waist. My center pressed to Jamie’s as he grabbed my arse and worked it as dough, pliant beneath his strong hands. I knew he could feel me ready and on him, a warmth that spread through my whole body as I felt him harden and buck up against his breeks. 

My soft skin was pressed up against Jamie’s chest, wiry and covered with a smattering of rust-colored hair that was both springy and inviting all at once. He flipped me over on the bed and kept my legs entwined around his waist as he slowly lowered his suspenders. One more move and his trousers would be lowering as well. 

I caught my breath. 

“Fuck,” Jamie exclaimed. 

His eyes were deep pools of seriousness, “Ye sure ye want this, Claire?” 

“Yes,” I pulled him down for another kiss, and another. “I do.” 

He exhaled into our kiss, his mouth turning up into a smile at one corner. I thought it must be the best feeling in the world, to know he was smiling. 

I was wrong. 

Jamie’s nimble fingers undid my dressing gown tie, letting the ribbons go slack upon the dark blue bedspread. His hands lightly traced the gentle slope of my stomach down to my hips, tenderly brushing against my thighs, his hand cautiously dipped down and I gasped as he grazed the soft mound between my legs. 

“Christ yer wee sounds drive me mad, Sassenach.” 

I tried to open my eyes but I was too overwhelmed with the sensation both tremulous and new of him gently exploring the area. 

“I do not make wee sounds.”

I bit Jamie’s lower lip and sucked it into my own as he bent to kiss me once more. A deep guttural moan rumbled from his chest as he pinned me tightly to him and started a deeper exploration of my femininity. 

I inhaled sharply and clung to him as his fingers gently caressed the slippery cleft between my legs and tentatively entered me. 

“Jamie.” I said in a strangled voice. “I want you.”

_Christ,_ I was going to have a heart attack. I was sure of it. 

“Not yet, mo nighean donn. I want to watch ye.” 

To my own surprise, I let out an involuntary wee noise as he rubbed and stroked the sensitive hub of nerves gathered into a swollen bud at my center. I felt as though I had walked through a desert with no water and suddenly someone had offered me an oasis. 

My thirst was growing as was his, as we lost ourselves in this new reverie of exploration and renewed electric touch. 

“Christ, Claire. Ye’ve no idea how many times I’ve thought of ye like this. What I would do if I were to get ye in my arms.” 

Jamie’s voice rumbled in my ear in an octave lower than his usual vibrado. The sound of it made me clench my insides tightly together and caused my stomach to flip again. 

I reached a hand up to touch his cheek, my fingers tracing the stubble on his jawline. Jamie turned his head and caught my thumb in his mouth, before I could move, he closed his rosy lips around it and I nearly gasped again at the sensation of him sucking on it circling it with his tongue before letting it go free again. 

  
  


Suddenly, a sharp rap came from the outside corridor. Jamie shot up, his hand leaving me behind wet and wanting. 

No one had a key apart from me or maybe Andreea but she would not likely be seeking me out at this hour. What _was_ the hour? 

I admit, time slipped away from me in the hustle of possessing Jamie’s soul as my own. Unsure of who it could be, Jamie jumped off of me and extended a hand to pull me back up to my feet. My legs felt like gelatin and I stood up unsure of my footing like a newborn fawn. 

I was experiencing an entirely new feeling of not having Jamie between my legs and it was not at all a welcome sensation without being satiated in any way. I still burned for him so brightly it was hard to focus on anything else. 

“Yes?” I tried to sound composed as I wrapped my dressing gown around me tightly approaching the door. 

“Claire, it’s time for supper. Didn’t you hear the call?” 

_Frank._

“No… no I didn’t. I’m sorry. I shan’t make it down after all tonight.” I stammered, “I’m … busy.” 

“Busy?” Frank sounded annoyed, “For God’s sake woman, you have tea and crumpets all day long whatever could you be busy with that would demand your attention away from your fiance?” 

I kept silent, Jamie tripped over his boots in the other room and I bit down on the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing. His tall frame looked like an incredibly awkward bird about to take flight as he desperately tried to remain silent in his scuffle to find and appropriate his clothing back on his body. 

“Claire, are you alone?” 

“Yes!” I exclaimed all too-quickly. 

“Well do come down to dinner soon and stop being ridiculous. Your mother has been asking about you for hours now.” 

My heart frowned upon this tidbit of information. Of course she was. 

Frank cursed a few choice words before I heard him padding down the deck outside my cabin. 

“Fuck.” I said out loud for the first time in my life. 

It felt good. 

“Fuck.” 

I had totally forgotten about my real life. Nothing seemed as real as what I had with Jamie. 

“Are ye going then?” Jamie asked carefully, he stood there in my bedroom, eyes downcast as he shifted his weight trying to button on his cream colored shirt. 

“No.” I said quickly. 

I went to the small writing desk by the window and took up a fountain pen and a sheet of paper. 

_Darling,_

_Now you can keep both of us locked away. It’s over._

_Claire_

I wasn’t totally cruel. I kissed the sheet of paper with the remnants of my lipstick leaving a mark. Folding it in two, I grabbed the 3 carat emerald cut ring off my finger and felt a weight lift my soul. I placed it and the portrait Jamie had just drawn in the safe before locking it up again. 

“I want you to have these.” 

I held out the pearls to Jamie, still on my neck. 

“Please.” 

I swallowed hard against the growing lump in my throat, I knew they meant so much to him. 

Turning around again, I lifted my brown curls up and waited for him to undo the clasp around my neck. 

Instead, Jamie’s breath tickled my tendrils as he placed a tender kiss there. 

“No.” 

I turned to face him again. 

There was something I couldn’t read about him just then. He was… intense. The way he stared at me made me feel naked all over again but it burned an impression into me that his next words would change the course of life as we knew it. 

“Claire, these belonged tae my mother. Now, I want them tae belong tae my future wife, if she’ll have me.” 

My hands started trembling as did my lips. 

“I ken it’s soon. One day,” Jamie explained. “I ken I dinnae have much tae offer ye but I figure we have years tae spend working it out.”

I opened my mouth and quickly closed it again. He was serious. 

“Come wi’ me? To America, Claire. I’ve ‘no much tae offer but hot dogs and beer on the boardwalk at Coney Island, but it’s a start, no?” 

There was a deeper meaning to Jamie’s words. 

_Will you let me take care of you? Will you let me try to see you safe?_

“Hot dogs on the boardwalk?” I questioned, my mouth twitching into a smile before I could stop it. “Sounds perfect.” 

_I accept._

Another knock at the door. 

_My God._

When did my cabin become a revolving door to Sears and Roebuck? 

“Claire?” 

Julia Beauchamp wriggled the door knob in her hand quite frantically. 

“Claire? I know you’re in there. Open this door immediately, or I swear I shall have a steward unlock it to find out the devil you’ve stood up Frank for.” 

She was dead serious. I heard the clicks of a key in the lock outside and panicked. 

Locking the door to the outer room, I threw on a day dress of blue forget-me-nots faster than I ever had in my life. Jamie watched me with a mixture of fear and intrigue on his face as he saw my naked form again. 

“Oh stop smirking and help me find some shoes!” 

He dove into action and I slipped on some walking boots. Before we could react, Mother had made entry to my cabin and was now pounding on my bedroom door. 

“Claire! I swear to the almighty if you’re with that boy, you’re dead to me.” 

I grabbed Jamie’s hand and pulled him out onto the private deck before hurrying him down the servant’s corridor with me to the outer deck and entrance to the first class cabins.

Mother was hot on our heels. 

I squealed and darted with Jamie around the bend. We narrowly avoided colliding with several dinner trays being brought up for first class passengers. Jamie grabbed a roll off one and tossed me another. I stifled a laugh before we caught sight of Mother’s deep crimson evening gown and ran helter-skelter down the hall. 

Jamie pulled me into one of the elevators and the steward looked at us nonplussed. 

“Where to, miss?” 

“Anywhere but here!” I exclaimed. As we went down, I caught sight of Mother’s face, red enough to match her dress. Her eyes bugged out at the sight of Jamie who tugged his cap at her with that wild smirk across his face. 

Julia Beauchamp stamped her foot in indignation at the hoops I was making her jump through. She was surprisingly agile for her age. 

_Lord._

What a mess of things. It wouldn’t be long til Frank found the drawing and the note.

“Where to, sir?” I posed the question to Jamie. 

“I ken a place,” Jamie whispered in my ear. “If you’ll let me take ye there, my muse” 

“Show me.” 

Another choice. Another step deeper into love with him. My common sense held a funeral in my brain for all the choices Claire Beauchamp was about to make based on her heart, not her head. 

I closed my eyes and breathed for a second, letting this mad angel lead me onto more heights of glory. Each step was one step closer to redemption. I couldn’t see the ending, but I could see the light as I clutched my way out of the grave I had been in awaiting my own burial. 

  
  
  


................................................................................

*collective sighs* as this artist calls her his Muse..... I am.... very prest..... 


	15. To the Stars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> April 14th, 1912 

It would have been a night like any other, if not for three things that had happened. 

As the sky darkened, the RMS Titanic was pounding onwards into the inky blackness of the Atlantic ocean. At 10:00 pm the water was unusually calm, making it difficult to watch out for icebergs. There were no waves breaking signaling their presence. The crow’s nest’s binoculars were misplaced earlier in the voyage. 

  
  


…………………………………..

Frank Randall chews the inside of his mouth as he opens the light green safe in Claire’s cabin. 

“Anything missing?” 

Julia Beauchamp’s voice is particularly strained as she sat on Claire’s bed, now a tousle of top covers from the pair of escapees. 

Frank frowns as he pulls out the velvet bag containing the pearls only to find Claire’s emerald-cut engagement ring weighing in his hands. 

A piece of parchment catches his eye and he pulls it out to see, quickly flipping it over so Julia Beauchamp isn’t more upset by the form of her naked daughter with a devilish grin on her face staring back at him. 

He reads the note. 

“Fuck.” 

“Excuse me?” Julia gasped. 

“We have to find them,” Frank growls, holding himself back from tearing the paper to shreds. 

“Now.” 

…………………………………………………

  
  


Jamie’s hand was entwined with mine as a distant clock in the hall chimed out the hour. Ten o’clock. I would be sorely missed by now but I didn’t care. 

My stomach growled a little as I realized we had had no supper that night, only hunger for each other as Jamie pulled me on. My hunger had been replaced with a dull, aching excitement as my heart raced. 

I giggled as we rounded a corner of the long, white halls and Jamie opened a door that looked as if it led to the mouth of hell itself. 

“What in the world?” 

“Come on,” Jamie flashed a grin at me. 

The steam and heat of a thousand suns came up out of the tiny stairwell, the noise was so loud with the whoosh and clanking of a thousand different shovels putting in coal to the Titanic’s engines. We were in the boiler room. Jamie jumped down into the peach firelight and reached back for me, I leapt after him. Throwing myself into the abyss knowing he would catch me if I fell. 

His arms were taught and strong as he caught me expertly and held me to him for a moment before putting me down on the grate under our feet. All around us, workmen shoveling stopped and looked. 

“Oi, yer not supposed to be here! Could be dangerous!” 

“Sorry!” Jamie yelled over the roar of the fires. 

His hand found mine and he squeezed three times. 

“Dinnae fash! Yer doing a marvelous job!” 

Jamie kept on touching me as we ran, ever onward into the hiss and glow of a hundred embers and along the dark corners of the massive chamber. 

“Keep up the good work!” 

I chuckled as he kept encouraging the workers. 

As we rounded a turn and saw a recess into blackness, Jamie yanked me towards him and we stopped running momentarily. His entire mood shifted and I looked at him then in the dark, my eyes growing accustomed to the dim light. 

He stood, a beautiful specter, chest heaving. His cream shirt unbuttoned more than when we started our chase. His auburn curls falling over his forehead and around his deep blue eyes. 

God his eyes. 

Alit in the red fire of the coals, he looked at me and blinked slowly once, then twice. Time itself seemed to stop to let me fall into them and be swallowed in the depths. I was in danger of drowning and I knew it. And yet I clung to him like a life raft. 

“Sassenach.” 

His voice is low and I can barely hear it in the hiss and clank of the boilers as they push out more steam. The steam rises and covers us up to our chests, I’m suddenly aware of being pulled in by him. 

As the humidity surrounds me, so does he. I’m vaguely aware of the smell of the outdoors upon his clothes, the sweet smell of pine and sweat hit my nose. 

Suddenly, his hands are in my hair, loose and wild like the curls that fall down from my crown and entangle with his fingers, gripping and pressing into me and against me like the rest of him. 

I barely have time to think before I’m gathered up against him, his free hand bracing himself against the steel bar behind me along the wall. Pinned between Jamie and the metal, I couldn’t move nor did I want to. 

He held me in space and time. His tongue deepening the kiss by slipping into my mouth, open and gasping. Sliding in against my own in a caress that is new and leaves a thrill of goosebumps down my back as he gropes at the buttons down my dress. 

Never before had I felt so helpless, or so safe, as I was under his giant of a form towering over me. Holding me ever-closer and seeking to possess my body with his own. 

I was sure the steel bar was forever imprinted on my backside before Jamie grabbed it in his hands and lifted me up by it, until my arms were around his neck and I was a full head above his own russet curls. Our mouths never leaving the never-ending kiss. 

I swallow, thirsty for more as he puts me down, his forehead pressing into my own lightly. He draws in a shaky breath before opening his eyes again and almost grimacing in pain at the sight of me. 

“Sassenach,” He says again, this time there is a tone of urgency in him that rouses me to action. 

“I cannae take much more of this.” 

Jamie picks me up and takes two giant steps before his hands fumble against a door and we both tumble inside. 

It’s dark. Warm. Quiet. 

The sudden peace is deafening. 

We are in a large hold, trunks and cars and crates and sacks lay neatly in piles all around us. 

Jamie closes the door behind us and puts me down.

Out of breath and wanting, I try to regain any bit of composure I have before giving way completely. 

I swallow hard and breathe in shakily as well. My mind blocking out the open need in his eyes when I looked into them last. I could feel him watching me. 

His eyes bore into my back as I tripped clumsily into the driver’s seat of a large, ruby red motorcar. 

I’d never driven before. It wasn’t ladylike according to Mother. 

My hands looked small and pale in the dim electric lights in the sconces on the walls. Jamie is watching me, hands at his sides, his chest slowly going up and down with his labored breaths as he tries to steady his own body. 

I see him brace himself against a large crate, just to the side of the car. 

“Oh.” 

My hand slips on the car horn and we both jump by the abrupt, annoying sound as it echoes in the hold. 

It breaks the tension between us, I laughed and Jamie smirked again. 

“Where to, Miss?” 

Jamie bowed halfway and gestured to the “road” ahead. 

He steps carefully onto the hub of the wheel, his eyes never leaving mine. His nose comes so close to me, it almost touches my own. He leans back slightly and cocks his head at me, waiting. 

I lose all words for a second. He is so damn tall and beautiful in the light. His auburn curls cutting a halo around his face as the light is behind him, his face dark and a glint of adoration in his eyes that glow as bright as the embers we just left behind. 

“To the stars.” 

Closing the space between us, I lean forward and raise myself up out of the seat enough to meet his lips with my own, careful not to lean on the car horn this time. 

Jamie gathers me up into his arms and exhales slowly, he pulls me out of the front of the vehicle and in one move, he opens the door to the back of the cab. He slows down enough not to bonk my head against the frame. 

He lays me down carefully upon the seat of crushed velvet and raises himself long enough to close the car door behind him locking us into a quiet embrace. My head close to his own, I could hear his heartbeat in his neck, racing towards something that we both knew was inevitable. 

I look up at the ceiling of the cab behind Jamie’s head. My thoughts are remarkably calm, I don’t feel fear or trepidation or the anxiety I thought I would. 

I did not stop to think if I was a bad girl, doing bad things. Nothing seemed holier than finding sanctuary in Jamie’s arms. I was letting his kisses rain down on my body like dew budding and creating tiny droplets all over blades of grass in the new springtime. He kisses me slowly, purposefully and let his lips linger. 

“Sassenach, I want ye so much I can scarcely breathe.” Jamie moaned softly into my ear, his teeth teasing at my neck before resting his head there like a child for comfort. 

“Will ye have me?” 

Breathless, I nodded, “Yes.” 

I gasped softly as he slipped his hands over my clothed breasts and heaving bosom. 

“Yes, I’ll have you.” 

Jamie’s hands wasted no time in hoisting up my skirts over my knees. He grabbed my legs at the knee and spread them across his waist, pulling me in tightly to him as he sat on the seat of the car with me on his lap. 

I ripped at his shirt, until a button fell off in the scramble. Jamie had me lifting my arms up to rid myself of the layers as I took off his shirt in one swift motion. My hands roamed his broad shoulders as I lay them bare under his suspenders. Gripping him to me, he was an Adonis of granite and cream. His skin buttery smooth over his tight muscles. 

Now in nothing but my undergarments, I reached up to my necklace clasp. Jamie caught my hand. 

“Leave them on.” He commanded. 

For the second time that night, Jamie hastened to undress me, his fingers working nimbly once more to free me from my stays. Suddenly, my breasts bounced free under the thin shift between my skin and his. 

Jamie stifled a moan deep in his core as he fondled them and his mouth joined the party his hands were having. I sucked in air sharply as he licked his way in one stroke from my navel to my breasts. Before I knew it, one was in his mouth and the other in his hand as my nipples grew hard to the touch. 

I returned the favor and felt Jamie sigh under me, his nipples hardening in response. I bit back a small cry as his teeth nipped at the sensitive skin around my areola. 

“Sorry, sorry,” Jamie apologized profusely. “I dinnae ken it would hurt ye.” 

“No,” I sighed languidly. “It felt good.” 

“Ah,” Jamie smiled, “I suppose a wee bit of pain may feel good, Sassenach.” 

His eyes widened as I reached down between my legs to grab the hard bulge on the outside of the fabric of his breeks. He closed his eyes and swallowed, resting his head on my shoulder. 

“Christ Almighty.” 

James Fraser took the Lord’s name in vain as he struggled to control himself, his hips thrusting upwards on their own volition. 

“Wasna expectin’ ye to do that, Claire. Christ. Ye touching me feels like heaven itself.” 

I looked into his blue eyes and smiled softly, “You didn’t expect me to touch you?” 

I bit my lip, grabbing him harder and feeling him throb beneath the fabric in response to my touch. 

“Well, yes but no….. I hoped…..” He stammered trying to find words. “Tae be honest, Sassenach, I didn’a plan this.” 

I pushed the suspenders off his shoulders and stroked him slowly. 

I enjoyed watching him writhe and gasp under my touch. 

Feeling like a goddess divine, I let my shift slide over my shoulders and pool around my middle. Standing up slightly, I rid myself of the rest of my clothes. 

Jamie bent and lowered his breeks and knickers. 

I had seen male anatomy before, but only in pictures. Well, ONE picture to be exact in my Uncle Lamb’s anatomy book when I was rummaging through his things as he stayed with us one summer when I was twelve. 

I remember the flush across my face and the scolding my mother had given me when she found me ogling the page of the book. 

Seeing a fully aroused male in the flesh, right in front of me, was quite another matter. 

“I didn’t know it would be so…so….” 

“Aye?” 

“Different.” 

Jamie flushed brightly and his eyes darted apologetically away as he sat back down on the seat of the car, his erection impossible to hide now. 

“Well, I dinnae ken if it gets much… bigger than this… “

I swallowed hard. 

Apart from the mechanics, mother had told me nothing else of being with a man in the Biblical sense. 

“We dinnae-” 

Jamie’s words were cut off as I put each knee on either side of his hips on the seat and hovered myself over him, trembling and throbbing as he was in that particular member of his body. 

I found myself in a long, tender kiss. 

“I want to.” 

Jamie nodded once and, grabbing my hips in his hands, eased me down on top of him. 

We both let out a small hitched breath as our bodies met in a new and unfamiliar way. My opening was tight and wet with desire but it was still a tight fit… at first. 

My hands gripped his shoulders and I pressed my forehead to his, hot with restraint as he bit his lower lip and let out a sigh that seemed to come from the center of his very being. 

“Holy God.” 

I looked deep into his eyes and found a mixture of rapturous joy and tenderness there. 

“Don’t stop now,” I urged him as I breathed in deeply getting accustomed to the feeling. 

Jamie cradled my head on his shoulder and thrust upwards slowly, taking his time and filling me up completely. We were a good fit. 

I sucked in my breath a little at the tiny, sharp prick of pain where we met. Jamie froze and immediately stopped. 

I let out a small noise as I gave into gravity and pushed through the pain to meet him solidly at the base of his manhood. Clutching his shoulders to me, I let Jamie stroke my hair softly and whisper into my ear. 

“Mo chridhe. Christ, I feel like God himself inside ye.” 

My eyes filled with water as I wondered how in the hell this was supposed to feel good. I wanted Jamie more than anything but the momentary discomfort seemed crippling. I breathed out slowly. 

All of a sudden it was gone. 

Jamie was anchored to me and I was a ship fastened securely to home. It felt familiar and new all at once. 

“Are ye alright, Claire?” 

I nodded, “Quite alright.” 

“I ken it might not feel good-” 

I lifted up slowly on his length and then back down again, his cock stroked the inside of my walls seductively and there was a slight pull inside me as he hit a spot close to the front of my belly as our bodies touched in response. 

“Oh,” I said softly. 

_That_ was how it was supposed to feel… 

Jamie let out a soft groan into my ear and I kissed him, feeling the vibration of it in my mouth. I sucked his lower lip into another kiss, feeling shivers run down my spine as he ran his hands down my back slowly to grab my hips. 

He bucked up cautiously, but I slid myself over him faster this time, pulling him into me. We continued this way for a few moments, in and out. Careful, cautious, until I couldn’t take it anymore. 

My mind went to the Bible once more, I was surprised at this fact. Given my current position of fucking a man I was not married to, nothing felt holier. I had been to church services all my life and yet… nothing came close to the feelings and sanctuary I felt with Jamie moving in me, clinging to him like a lifeline. 

_For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh._

One flesh. 

One. 

I bit the small of his neck, craning my head around his and felt Jamie shudder against me. 

“I want you to fuck me, Jamie.” 

He pulled back slightly, the blue of his eyes almost deep navy as his pupils dilated considerably. His breath was tight and strained as he held himself back. 

“Sassenach-” 

Jamie’s voice cut out as he grabbed my arse and filled me, flipping me over onto my back with him on top of me. 

My head bashed into the back of the seat and I laughed softly in spite of myself. Jamie was horrified. 

“I’m sorry, Claire. Have I hurt ye?” 

“No, it’s all good.” I couldn’t stop laughing at our clumsiness. 

Jamie smirked, “I’ve pictures this moment more than once, Claire. And it never did include me hurting ye so many times.” 

I pulled him into me and kissed him again, encouraging him to slide into me again from this angle. 

Christ, it felt wonderful. The heat from our bodies had steamed up the cold windows on the motor car and we were in our own little world of ecstasy. 

“Do you want to go a bit faster?” 

Slow was lovely but as my body had come accustomed to the movement of him inside me, I wanted more at an increasing rate. My nipples were hard and sensitive on him and the meeting of our bodies entwined as they were was getting maddening. 

I needed more. Now. 

“God yes.” Jamie exclaimed, smiling into another kiss. 

I let out a soft moan as he entered me again, this time with renewed force and vigor. 

“Do it now and don’t be gentle,” I urged, wrapping my legs around his waist and bringing him into me faster and deeper than before. 

Jamie needed no urging. Grabbing my arse in one hand and the back of my head in the other, he pressed his forehead to mine and plunged his cock deep and hard inside me making my back arch as he repeated the motion several times. 

His large hand was in the small of my back now and my legs shook slightly as he filled me again and still again. 

I felt him grow harder inside me and breathed in as he stretched me to breaking, filling me with his cock in a way that made me cry out and hold onto his shoulders with my fingernails digging into his skin. 

If it hurt, Jamie didn’t show it. In fact, he came into me all the faster and harder with intensity as our cries mixed together in the cab of the car. 

I closed my eyes as the intensity built into a frenzy, Jamie’s breath was fast and ragged as he came into me faster and faster still until his body meeting mine was a wave of continuous motion. A tide of pleasure washed over me as I heard him moan softly with each stroke. 

The vibrato of his voice filled the air around my ears and I closed my eyes, opening my mouth only to be met with a kiss so deep and exploring that I nearly lost my breath entirely. 

There was a tension building in my body, a coil that he wound ever-tighter with each deep penetration of my womb. I ached for him to keep going, to fill me completely with himself. 

The sweat from my brow mixed with his as I clung to him in desperate gasps as he pounded into me. He wasn’t holding back now, each stroke racked my body with a shaking breath as I cried out sharply. 

“Jamie!” 

He growled in my ear, “Give me your mouth, Sassenach.” 

I kissed him then, as a wave of pure electricity washed over me leaving my legs trembling and helpless wrapped around his waist as he bore down into me with the strength and intensity of youth. 

Jamie steadied himself against the rear window of the cab, his hand pressing into and leaving a trailing handprint on the back of the condensation on the window from the heat from our bodies and the chill of the hold. 

He breathed in, crying out my name.

“Oh God, oh Claire!” 

With three more strokes, Jamie exhaled sharply and I could feel his cock pulsate warm and throbbing as he released his seed into me with deep, fervent strokes. 

His mouth was on my breast again as he finished deep into my womb and let his head rest on my sternum, humid with the efforts of our pleasure. 

Jamie kissed me again, his tongue deep into my mouth, slick and tender as he slowly pulled himself up and off of me only to roll over onto the floor beside me and mutter something in Gaelic. 

It took me a full minute to collect myself enough to speak as I relished the new sensation of Jamie’s seed slick and deep in between my legs spilling out of me. 

“What did you say?” 

Jamie’s voice was soft and breathless from the floor. 

“I said I felt like my heart was going tae burst, Sassenach.” 

I chuckled softly. 

“Mine, too.” 

It was another moment before I saw him, Jamie pulled himself up on one elbow and looked at me as I was, lying on my back on the seat. Eyes closed to the world and for all intents and purposes, dead to it entirely. 

“Can I ask ye something?” 

I nodded vaguely. 

“Did ye enjoy it?” 

I looked at Jamie and turned my body slightly, my limbs were heavy with the movement. His hair was disheveled and yet still fell into place perfectly. If I wasn’t so in love with him I would hate him for it. I was sure my own brown locks were an utter mane. 

“I did.” I blushed hard and Jamie grinned, blushing harder. 

I smirked, “Did you?” 

Jamie laughed softly. 

“God yes, Sassenach.” 

His eyes closed again and he lay on the floor next to me, his breath finally calming down in long exhales. 

“And when ye cried out, Sassenach….” Jamie asked shyly. “I dinnae ken women could…” 

“Neither did I.” I admitted, Mother had left that important bit out of our dialogue. 

“Every time?” 

“I don’t know.” I said bemused at his question. 

“Next time, I ken-” 

Jamie’s words were cut short. The car rocked and jolted slightly even though we remained still. In fact, the entire hold seemed to shudder as a piercing screech like nails on a chalkboard resounded from somewhere distant and below us. 

Jamie jolted upright and I sat up, gathering my dress around me. 

It was 11:40 pm, the starboard side of the Titanic scraped along the fated iceberg sealing our fate. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going to horny jail now. I know. You're welcome.


	16. The Wayward Son

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Best get your tissues out now, don't say I didn't warn you.  
> 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Masquerading as a man with a reason  
> My charade is the event of the season  
> And if I claim to be a wise man  
> Well, it surely means that I don't know
> 
> On a stormy sea of moving emotion  
> Tossed about, I'm like a ship on the ocean  
> I set a course for winds of fortune  
> But I hear the voices say
> 
> Carry on my wayward son  
> There'll be peace when you are done  
> Lay your weary head to rest  
> Don't you cry no more
> 
> -Kansas

1890, somewhere near Inverness

I trundled on the long lane, full of my own thoughts running late on an errand for my aunt. I dinnae ken much of the place or time but I ken the sun was shining in my eyes because I dinnae see her before I ran into her. 

A wee slip of a lass cursed as she fell over and dropped her parcel. A tumble of bright blue wool yarn fell out before I scooped them up and stood, looking at her in surprise. 

Hair as red as the sky at sunset, her blue eyes matched the skeins perfectly and were slanted upwards at me in both anger and interest. 

“Och, watch yerself.” 

“Sorry, Miss…. I didn’t ken…..” 

“Head in the clouds, eh?” Her mouth twitched into a wide smile, God it made my heart sing to see her. 

It was as if the sun had come out just for her and the whole world rejoiced to see it happen. A lass of about sixteen and verra bonny with her wind-chapped cheeks a bright pink and her eyes blazing at me. 

“Yer Murtagh, eh? Murtagh Fitzgibbons?” 

I nodded, there were no words to be found in my mouth. 

“I ken yer auntie well, in fact she’s throwing me an engagement party at the end o’the month.” 

Damn. 

“Aye, well…. Ye’ve got a fine person to plan it eh, Mistress….?” 

“Ellen.” 

_Ellen._

The name would stick to me like a tattoo and haunt me forever. 

“Mistress Ellen.” 

She giggled with the formality. 

“I’ll be seeing ye, _Mister Murtagh_ , aye?” 

I nodded quickly, perhaps a little too quickly. 

I watched her walk away, her bonny form bobbing and getting farther away from me with each flick of her bright red hair. 

I knew right then and there I would do anything for her, anything at all. I dinnae ken I would have to someday. 

……………………………………………………………………………………….

  
  


February 2nd, 1910

Lallybroch

  
  


Her hand looked so small and white in my own, I held it tightly, hoping and praying beyond all I had in me that she would live. But the death rattle was there in her chest. Brian had passed not even a day ago and Ellen had not stopped crying over it, I thought it best not to tell her just yet but the nurse had a mind. I ken it would break her heart and her will to live. And just as surely, she would break mine over again in a thousand pieces. 

“The pearls. Jamie’s ye ken, Murtagh.” 

“Aye. Always.” 

I cursed mentally, the lad was off in Edinburg and would likely not make it home in time. Chasing whatever new medium the print shops had to offer, scoping out new views for his landscapes. I ken he had started drawing human portraits, but did no’ think it kind to tell his ma’am his models were found in the whorehouses. ‘Twould only worry her. 

Ellen’s blue eyes were tinged in red as she coughed again, bringing up blood this time. I watched helplessly as it wracked her broken body. 

“Make me a vow, Murtagh.” 

I knelt on my knees next to her bedside. 

“Anything.” 

My heart was hers, only hers. 

“Promise to watch after him, Murtagh. I beg ye. Jamie worries me so. My wayward son needs guidance, ye ken.” 

Ellen tightened up her face at the thought of him and fought back tears. 

“Wheesht, lass. It’ll only hurt ye-” 

“No.” She responded. “I have to get this out. Without me and his father here I assume the house will go under, and rightly so. We’ve been struggling for so long. Tell Jamie it’s alright eh? And someday, someday….” 

She breathed in shakily. 

“When the time is right, Murtagh. Promise me ye’ll make sure he is handfast with a woman. A woman mind you, no a lassie.” 

“I promise.” 

I kissed her hand then and she smiled softly. 

“Ye ken… I was always sad it wasn’a you….ye treated me so kindly. I ken why. I forgive ye for it. Forgive me too, aye?” 

I nodded, my eyes filling up with tears. 

“We do what we must.” 

I closed my eyes and prayed. 

May she be at peace. May her wayward son come home. Lord, give me strength to be his guardian. 

Ellen Fraser lay on her deathbed and smiled, one last time. A tear on her cheek, she sighed and was still. 

………………………………………………………………………

April 14th, 1912

I lay on my back on the lower bunk and tried to sleep, Lord knows I couldn’t. 

Jamie had yet to return that day and I was worried sick over him. 

Curse that woman, curse his blasted hide for not being reliable enough to think to even send a message of his whereabouts. It was just like him. 

I’d give him a good talking to and he’d call me Daddy-O and I would roll my eyes and growl and we would be made up. 

A sickening, screeching noise woke me from my sour thoughts.

I got up and looked around. 

Something wasn’t right. 

I had hunted rabbits and other vermin before and I ken the moment in their eyes right before ye hunt them down. The moment they knew it wasn’t a normal silence in the air around them. 

I felt a chill run down my spine and I ken… I ken it was the same tonight. 

Suddenly, a swarm of rats came round the bend and ran by the door as the rest of third class awoke and stirred. 

“We’ve hit something.” Gunnar’s deep voice grunted behind me. 

………………………………………………………………..

  
  


“Have we hit something?” I asked, hastily buttoning on my blouse as Jamie fixed a suspender strap and he froze outside the cab. 

“Aye.” 

Jamie’s tone suddenly became wild with fear as he grabbed my hand and tore me out of the car with little decorum. 

“Sassenach, now!” 

I saw what his eyes had seen, a trickle of water was breaking in under the door to the boiler rooms and Jamie all but took off, tearing me behind him like a kite. My boots barely hit the ground before I was running behind him. We made it to the boilers just in time to see a wall of water hit one down the line from us. 

Then another. Screams and steam hit all my senses at full force, my mind didn’t quite comprehend what was happening as Jamie tore on, dragging me at his heels. He hoisted me above himself and pushed hard, I landed in a tumble of skirts and boots on the stairs above as we scrambled higher, ever higher. 

Behind us, I could hear the deafening roar of the fires, the screams of the men below and the sickening metal clanking sound of the hatches being shut farther below us. Men were still inside as they were shut. I could tell by the screams. I wanted to be sick. 

My mind was numb and in shock as the realization hit us both, I looked at Jamie and we both stared at each other, mouths open in frozen fear. 

“I’ve got to get ye to first class, now.” 

Jamie said softly, pulling us both to our feet and rushing me on down the hall to the deck of second class. 

It was eerie how nothing seemed different here. Yet. 

As people came out of their rooms and everyone was asking what had happened, I was horrified to overhear them all being told to, “Go back to your beds, nothing serious I’m sure.” 

And, “This is the unsinkable ship, after all.” 

Some children were shunting and kicking around blocks of ice that had fallen upon the deck around us. 

It was as if we had never been witness to the hatched behind locked and the walls of water crashing in. 

Just moments before, I was high on the explicit rush of my first sexual encounter and now I had witnessed death in a matter of five minutes. I couldn’t take it in. My teenage mind had no idea how to process or fathom the death of so many in so little time. 

And here we were, pretending like it was all a distant dream. 

We knew better, Jamie and I. 

His hand was tight in mind as we pushed past passengers and crew alike, the whole of the Titanic seemed like a beehive now, busy and buzzing with life and annoyance more than anything. 

“Why have we stopped? I thought we were trying to set a record.” 

Or. 

“I daresay all this fuss for a bit of ice.” 

None of them knew. 

I didn’t stop to tell them. 

Jamie and I slipped up onto the deck to first class and it hit me that we were standing where I stood when I first laid eyes on him. Was it only days ago? 

Seemed like a lifetime. 

Jamie spun me around, his eyes catching on Mr. MacKenzie and Murray on the deck in deep conversation. Their brows knit together into fearful worry. 

“Claire.” 

My mind was humming with the reality of our predicament. 

“Jamie, what’s happening?” 

“I dinnae ken, Claire. It’s bad.” 

My honey eyes latched onto his worried blue ones, he searched my face until I was looking at him. Actually looking at him. I felt tears rush to my lashes. He was serious. 

This was happening. 

“I want ye to promise me if it comes to it, ye’ll get on a lifeboat. Claire do ye ken what I’m saying?” 

I watched his Adam's apple bob slightly as he twitched his right eye into a kind of steady look of stalwart faith. I knew him though. Through and through. 

“Surely it won’t come to that….” 

My voice wavered, suddenly thinking about the lack of lifeboats on board I had pointed out earlier today… or was it yesterday? 

“Claire.” 

I snapped back to Jamie. 

“Promise me.” 

I gripped his hands tightly in my own. 

“I promise,” I said softly, “But Jamie, you’re coming with me. I don’t care if it’s here tonight or when we get to New York. But you’re coming with me. And I with you. We’re together now, do you hear me?” 

My voice had raised to a panicked half-yell as I tried to make myself be heard over the noise of the onlookers who tumbled out onto the deck. 

Jamie’s mouth twitched into a grin, one side of his mouth was higher than the other when he smiled. I liked that. 

“Claire, I never thought I’d ask this so fast and all….” 

In spite of the noise and confusion, in my trauma I tuned out the rest of the world and it was just me and him. Just me and him in my little bubble of comfort there on the deck. Where I first saw him. 

“But will ye be handfast wi’ me? No matter what happens, I’d like that verra much.” 

I swallowed hard, I had only heard of it once or twice before. A common law marriage, a promise, an engagement sans ring. As serious as you could get without a church or minister around. 

My mind went back to the feeling of safety and sureness of our bodies entwined together. Of seeing the men thrown against the boilers, the hiss, the yells, the pained screams echoing up and into my nightmares. If I ever slept again. Jamie’s eyes looking at me expectantly, hoping, praying and loving me. Just as I was. Looking at me as if no man had ever looked on a woman before. This was the first time. Him and me and us. 

“Yes,” I said without thinking. 

“Yes!” I repeated with feeling. 

Jamie smiled again and raced on with me, down to the second class deck as we frantically looked around, for whom I did not know. 

Thankfully, Jamie did. 

“Murtagh!” 

Mr. Fitzgibbons was deep in conversation with Jacob, his face sighed in sweet relief at the sight of Jamie. Tucking him firmly in a hug, the man stood back as if to yell at him. 

“Will ye handfast us, Father?” 

Murtagh swallowed, his dark eyes looking over me once before he broke into a tear-filled smile. 

“Aye,” He said proudly. “Aye, I will.” 

A promise kept. 

A promise given. 

A wayward son was home at last. 

  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know what it is, but I had this song by Kansas on repeat this week and it made me think of Jamie here. No snarky comment or gifs today at the end. Just ....tears.... someone stab me it'll hurt less. 
> 
> Once more into the deep....


	17. Blood of my Blood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This wedding has everything. The bar fights, the babies crying. Someone's old family Bible no one's touched in years but is suddenly out now because we all need to walk on water.....

In all the months of wedding planning with Julia Beauchamp, I had never in a million years thought my vows would be to a different man entirely. I never imagined the patter of fear and dread in my heart would be replaced with a quiet knowing. The hum of the crowd would dwindle to a faint noise as I blocked out the onlookers that had gathered. A small riff raff group of ragamuffins and urchins gathering to witness the marriage of me and James Fraser aboard the deck of the Titanic. 

“I’ve no rope or cloth, have ye Claire?” 

I shook my head as Murtagh’s eyes alighted on my neck. 

“It’ll do, lad. We aren’t doing blood fasting after all, ye ken. That way yer mother’s here in a way.” 

Jamie’s eyes filled with tears as he came close to me and unfastened the pearls from around my neck, their cold, hard beads slipping around our hands as Murtagh instructed us to hold hands crisscross in front of ourselves. The strand of baroque pearls wrapped around our hands and wrists and fastened us close. I could feel Jamie’s pulse thundering through his wrists, now pressed against my own. 

“Repeat after me,” Murtagh began. 

I nodded. 

Jamie’s eyes looked heavenwards for an instant as he struggled to keep composed. I did not notice the tears welling in my own eyes until they had fallen warm and wet upon my cheeks. 

As with before, I was not frightened. My heart beat a rhythmic hum to the sound of the words as we repeated them together after Jamie’s godfather. 

“Ye are Blood of my blood, and Bone of my Bone.

I give ye my Body, that we Two might be One. 

I give ye my Spirit, ‘til our Life shall be Done.” 

Murtagh stopped and smiled slowly, up till that moment I felt as though his haggard face had never seen the likes of a smile before. 

“James Fraser, d’ye take this woman to be your wedded wife. To have and to hold from this day forward?” 

Jamie smiled and his mouth twitched as he swallowed hard, “I do.” 

Somewhere behind us there was a sound of a baby crying. 

“And do ye, Claire Beauchamp, take this man to be yer lawfully wedded husband?” 

I was surprised I had a voice, at last I found it. 

“I do.” 

Murtagh tapped his hand on a Bible and pressed the heavy book under our bound hands. 

“By the power vested in me from this holy book, I shall declare thee husband and wife. Ye may kiss yer bride, Jamie. No’ that ye need any-” 

Jamie’s lips were on mine and Murtagh’s words trailed off as the small crowd around us cheered and hollered at the show of affection.

I smiled and pressed my forehead into Jamie’s seeing the utter delight and excitement in his bright blue eyes as they slanted back into a broad grin. 

The pearls went back around my neck and the family Bible someone had lent us went back as well. 

Jamie gathered me up and spun me around, I giggled and held him close. My laugh died on my lips however, because I was set down again rather suddenly. 

“Claire Elizabeth Beauchamp! What is the meaning of all this?!”

Mother looked absolutely ashen gray on the deck in front of us, wrapping a giant coat over her evening dress. 

Suddenly, there was a burst of dark fabric near me and a sickening, solid crack as Frank lunged forward and punched Jamie solidly in the jaw. 

In one move, Murtagh jumped forwards and held Frank back by the throat as Jamie clutched my sleeve and reeled sideways. Frank turned and punched him as well, Murtagh fell on the ground and did not move. 

There was a chorus of screams and the master at arms was before me once again, looking not too favorably on the cast of our little altercation. 

“That man stole my property,” Frank held his hand close and pointed with his head at Jamie, a mixture of anger and shock upon his thin, dark face. 

“He didn’t steal anything!” I blurted out. “If you’re talking about the pearls, I GAVE them to him. If you’re referring to me, I gave myself to him as well.” 

Mother’s face grew absolutely white with fury and looked as though someone had taken their thumbs and prodded and poked a bit of white clay until it was all drawn up like a dumpling ready to boil. 

Frank grabbed me and pulled me back from Jamie, “I took you for a coward, Claire, but never a whore.” 

As the officers came forward and pinned Jamie’s arms behind him he shouted, “I’ll thank ye to take yer hands off my **wife**!” 

Frank looked stunned for a moment, but only for a moment. In an instant the look had gone and was replaced by a cruel, sinister smile. 

“Your…. wife?” Frank shook me by the shoulders and nodded to the officers, “Take him below and deal with him, it’s time my fiancé and I had a little chat.” 

“Jamie!” I screamed as Frank ripped me in one direction and the men hauled Jamie backwards down to second class. 

“Go, I’ll find ye, Sassenach.” Jamie hissed to me in a gruff voice, his lip was split and he wiped blood on his shirt collar. 

“I promise ye, I will.” 

I nodded. 

Frank’s hands around my wrists were like iron shackles as he yanked me down the deck with Mother trailing hotly behind. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anyone else absolutely fed up with Julia and her BS.....


	18. A Mathematical Certainty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With only an hour to go, however will our heroes get themselves out of this mess?

Frank rushed me to our cabins, we had no sooner entered mine than he shook me like a doll until my teeth rattled in my head. Mother did nothing. 

“Whatever’s gotten into you, you can forget it.” 

“I can’t, Frank. We’re married. Mother, I couldn’t stand it anymore. I left a note, I-” 

“This note?” Frank waved the picture in my face and I blushed hotly but locked my eyes on his in defiant anger. 

Mother averted her eyes but I could see the picture bothered her more than the way Frank was handling me. 

“You really think you’re just able to throw it all away, Claire? Whatever did you imagine? Running off to…. To… Coney Island and with that penniless artist?” 

“Like it or not,” I breathed out deeply, closing my eyes and seeing my own rage burst forth in red sparks at the back of my eyelids, “We are married. End of discussion. Now where did you take him?” 

“You’ll never see him again,” Frank hissed. 

I snapped, something fractured within me and like a kite on a string, I cut it loose. Drawing my arm back without thinking, I slapped Frank square across the face with a crack. 

Mother gasped. 

I flinched, bracing myself for the fallout of my actions. My stomach hit against my heart as it thundered in apprehension. 

He held his face and looked at me frozen in disbelief, then purple-red anger took over his expression. The vein in his forehead bulged immediately as he turned on me. 

Frank would have doubled onto me had the door not opened and his manservant rushed in. 

“Sir… madams, we must all put on our life belts. Captain’s orders. He wants all first-class passengers on deck and ready to go.” 

“Go?” Mother stammered, “Go where precisely?” 

The man shrugged and handed us all white, puffy flour-sack looking things to tie on. I had only seen life jackets in theory or hanging on the wall but never on. I took mine and looked at it, thinking of what we had witnessed in the hold. Mother cringed and put hers on, Frank shook his at his side and rolled his eyes at the inconvenience. 

After insisting we wore our coats, we were shuffled by the servant down to the main ballroom just inside the first class deck. The crowd was a mix of confusion, champagne, violins and jewelry that had been put on for a much different version of tonight than we were currently facing. 

Andreea and Mother’s maid, Lotte, were thick in conversation as Mother turned to them and gave her demands as we walked on. 

“Be sure to turn the heaters on in our rooms, I’d like a cup of tea when I return.” 

A dark blonde man with his head down rushed past me and I grabbed his arm. 

“Mr. Murray,” I said weakly. 

He turned and looked at me then, his face grave and full of fear. His steel gray eyes now ashen. 

“Miss Beauchamp, got your life vest I see? Well, make haste to the deck-” 

“What’s happening? I can see it on your face, don't lie to me.” 

Mr. Murray cringed and pulled me aside gently, Frank and Mother gathered in as well. He shifted uncomfortably in front of me and I could see the tears he was holding back as he cleared his throat and looked at his pocket watch nervously. 

“Now be careful who you tell, Claire.” He began slowly, “We’re sinking. It’s a mathematical certainty. Six. Six chambers are flooded. With five we could stay afloat, but six? All this will be at the bottom of the Atlantic in an hour.” 

  
“You’re certain?” I gasped softly. 

Mr. Murray nodded, looking to his feet once more as if he couldn’t bear to look me in the face. 

I felt like I’d been punched in the stomach. I knew what we had seen was serious but this? I wasn’t expecting…. That meant… 

“And the lifeboats?” 

We shared a meaningful look that was lost on Mother and Frank. 

“At the ready. You know what I told you about them. See to it that you’re safe, Claire. I’ll be spreading the word to load women and children first.” 

He turned to go, I pulled him back into a quick hug. I couldn’t bear this kind man leaving without so much as the warmth of human touch to strengthen his broken heart. The look of devastation on his face was enough to make me want to cry. 

“Thank you.”

Mr. Murray sighed quietly and grabbed my hand to squeeze it. 

“It was a pleasure, Claire. It really was.” 

And then he was gone. 

I looked from Mother to Frank and back again, their faces drawn in disbelief. 

“I… I do hope they load us on by class,” Mother twittered mildly, “I’d hate to be loaded next to the common filth….”

Frank bit at his mouth, “Come, ladies. Let’s see to it you two are first to get on, I’ll be close behind… surely they do not mean _all_ men are last… the thought of it!” 

The buzzing lights of the electric chandeliers flickered overhead sending me reeling, the room suddenly felt tiny and cramped and voices were muddled and distorted in my head. A dream, it had to be. A nightmare.

Jamie had asked me to get to the lifeboats if needed. But not without him. Never without him. I couldn't. I wouldn't. 

“Shut up!” I yelled. 

To them, the voices around us, the noise, the hum of the electricity around me. It seemed like a carnival and I needed it to stop. 

A cold chill overtook me and I shook, my hands twitching at my sides in my oversized pink wool coat with the fur lined hood. With a gasping breath, I broke free of Frank’s hand and stepped away from the pair of them. 

“I…. I have to go. Jamie.” 

“Claire? Where are you going? Claire!” 

I drowned out Frank’s yell and Mother’s squawking as I tripped over my own feet racing down the staircase and along the corridor, bracing myself against the onslaught of people making their way to deck. I had no idea where Jamie was but I knew we were in this together. 

I was destined to be entwined forever with the man who saved my life from suicide aboard a sinking ship. 

………………………………………………….

“Now I ken we’re in first class, there’s music to get arrested to up here.” I snorted and scoffed as the two burly men twisted my arms further behind my back and kicked me forward into the stairwell and down, ever-down to third class. 

My smirk died on my face when I saw where we were headed. 

“Are ye daft? It’s flooded down there!” 

“Listen laddie, I ken yer a Scott, same as me. I must do as I’m told unless the master at arms says differently. Right now he said to secure ye, so that’s where we’re headed… besides this ship is unsinkable.” 

“Aye,” said the other, “I’m sure whatever trouble we have now will be sorted in an hour or two at most.” 

If only they knew. 

I tried not to imagine the water I had seen nor the screams I had heard. To be honest, I pulled my shoulder getting Claire to safety and the men were ‘no being gentle about it. They threw me in a room, empty save an old boiler pipe and wasted no time in chaining me to it. Putting the key in the cabinet across the room, the two men stood outside the door and I could see them through the porthole window just talking to each other. Debating on who should stay on guard. 

Great. 

Now probably wasn’t a good time to notice my breeks weren’t buttoned all the way….. I had made haste in getting out of there…. 

I smiled, even a split lip from Frank Randall couldn’t keep the joy inside me. 

I had tasted heaven and it was the taste of Claire’s own lips. 

The blood and sweat of the past hour was nothing to the joy and unbridled explosion of senses and mind as we were finally joined as one. Really one. 

I hadn’a stopped to think that day. Not from the moment I confronted Claire in the gym, to the modeling of her perfect body. 

Was that today? Or yesterday? 

Regardless, the past twenty four hours were so full of change it caused my head to spin. 

And now I was here, in a room. Locked into a death grip with a boiler pipe. The ship slowly filling with water if what I had witnessed had anything to say in the matter. 

Surely, we couldn’a go under….. But we were headed that way….. I looked around me and suddenly fear set into my heart. I was glad Claire wasn’a around to see me twist and kick and yank at the handcuffs on my wrists in desperation. 

  
  


When I was a lad, Murtagh took me rabbit hunting on our old estate. I ken hunting meant killing but I was still scared and dodged behind my godfather when we came to one of the traps he’d set. A lad of nine was no match for a scared, panting rabbit caught by the foot…. Barely. I’ll never forget the whites of its eyes as it breathed heavy, witnessing our arrival. And then I saw it. A sight that would never leave me. It had all but gnawed off its own hind leg in an attempt to get free. 

I ken what must be done. I dinnae ken if I had it in me to kill a living thing but I saw this poor helpless creature with its eyes all white and its mouth foaming in exhaustion. Without thinking I took the pistol hanging in a strap on my side and shot it dead. 

I remember turning and retching, my stomach revolting at the sight I’d just taken in. But it wasn’t moving anymore. And it wasn’t in pain. 

“Ye did the right thing, Laddie.” 

Murtagh’s voice was soft beside me as he put a hand on my shoulder. 

“Ye cannae let something suffer like that when it’s destined to die already. Ye ken?” 

I nodded, wiping my tears away hastily. 

“Ye put it out of its misery fast and clean, eh? Dinnae feel too bad lad, it’s the way of the world.” 

Murtagh went over and opened the trap. In the sickening squeak of the hinge, I sobbed quietly at what I’d done. 

Way of the world or no, I would never kill again. 

Not till that night would I take the life of another man. 

I dinnae even ken it at the time. 

  
  
  
  
  


..............................................

Wait whaaaaaaa..... is that divergence from canon I hear..... why yes, yes it is. 


	19. Shots Fired

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Notes for the Chapter:**

> *cover pic courtesty of outlander_stuff on instagram*

  
  


“I’m looking for my husband, can you help me?” 

I ran down the long, empty hallways of first and second class, looking for someone, anyone to talk to. Most everyone was up on deck already. 

“Hello?” 

I yelled down the endless maze of white walls and red carpet. 

“Hello!” 

Suddenly, I bumped into a waiter struggling with an armful of silver for God-knows-what purpose. I didn’t ask or care. 

“Where do they keep prisoners, would you know? The Master of Arms?” 

The man shook his head, “Third class for sure, ma’am. Yer daft if yer thinking anyone’s there now, though-” 

“Where?!” 

“Down the stairs, then left and left again. Go to the end near the boilers.” 

Boilers, got it. Sure. 

Why not? 

If I ever got out of here I would kill Frank with my bare hands. 

I ran hysterically on, screaming Jamie’s name. 

“Claire?” 

A solid man bumped into me around the last bend. I recognized Jacob and Cosmin close behind him. 

“Help me, please. They have Jamie locked up somewhere I need to get to him. Someone said near the boilers.” 

“Feckin hell, man.” Jacob steadied his jaw and nodded, leading the way. I felt emboldened by my new compatriots as we charged on, my skirt billowing out behind me like a sail. As we rounded the bend down the stairs, the three of us held tight to the side of the hall.

Icy cold water was up to our ankles and my yells turned into screams as I ran ahead of them. 

“Jamie! Jamie!” 

My wool coat weighed down considerably but I kept going. 

The water got deeper and deeper as the others followed me, soon it was at least five inches deep and ever-deepening. 

“What if he’s not down here, ma’am.” Cosmin muttered under his breath, the others had the same fear in their eyes that I felt in my heart. 

I heard distant clunking from the hall down from us and I ran and burst open the door. 

“Christ almighty, I’m glad to see ye, Sassenach.” 

Jamie was hanging with a chair toppled under him, trying to reach the ceiling to yank out the pipe his hands were cuffed to. His hair was wet with sweat and his breeches half wet at the ankles, his wrists were bright red where he’d been pulling on the unforgiving iron. 

Jacob was already in the keys on the wall opposite us. 

“No use, man. Bastard took the bloody one I needed.” Jamie exclaimed darkly. 

“Aye, but left a bullet.” Cosmin exclaimed as he went through the desk of the Master at Arms and brought forth a handgun. “Hold tight, friend.” 

I put a hand over my mouth as Jamie closed his eyes and stretched the iron taught over the pipe. 

With a bang and a whistle of air bursting from the pipe, Jamie was free and able to break the bonds the rest of the way. Letting out a triumphant laugh he gathered me in his arms and kissed me deeply before breaking free to slam the lads on the backs. 

“I thought I was a goner fer sure. Murtagh?” Jamie looked at me questioningly. 

Shit. 

“Haven’t seen him, Frank took me to the room and Mother-” 

“We must find him.” 

“Jamie, the ship….” 

“I ken, Sassenach. There’s no much time. Damned officers left me here to die ye ken?” 

There was a sickening groan and creak of the metal ship under us as the lights flickered once more. I couldn’t think of anything worse than being down in third class with no lights whatsoever and water gushing in around our feet. 

Surely more than six boilers were now underwater by now. 

A stray rat or two guided us up skyward as we made our way again through the maze back to the second class. 

Another bend and the four of us were smack into a crowd at the bottom of the steps to the second class deck. To my own shock and horror, it was closed off by the metal bars, the Titanic crew had secured all second class passengers below, letting first class escape the ship first. 

Mother would be happy to know they were being loaded like fancy chattel instead of this plebeian herd. Mothers and infants were pressed against their men and brothers as they all equally pushed and yelled to be let out. 

Jamie pressed my hand and then pushed to the front of the line like a bull rushing a glass door. He towered over the men who were trying their best to lock the gates. 

“Open the gates, now. We have women and children down here as well.” 

“I’m sorry sir, that’s impossible, we have strict orders-” 

Jamie didn’t wait, grabbing the doors by the inward hinges where they met, he twisted the metal with a great yell until his hands gave out. They were shuddering and his palms bleeding a bit as he let them fall to his sides. 

The crewman actually turned tail and ran backwards, suddenly brandishing a gun and waving it around. 

“Get back, get back or I’ll shoot!” 

While some passengers screamed, Jacob and Jamie shared a knowing look and turned around to a bench that was anchored to the food. One man took one end, the other took the other side and with a great crack, they ripped it off it’s feet. 

“Back up, back up!” I yelled, breaking up the families to the sides of the corridor as the men counted to three and lunged the bench at the bent gates. 

One, two, three great crashes and they were down. Twisted and useless pieces of metal on the floor. Cosmin rushed forward first and two things happened extremely fast. 

One, he tripped over the twisted doors as he pushed through and fell. 

Two, the handgun he must have stolen from the Master at Arms fell out of his coat and skittered across the floor in front of the crewman. 

He reached out to grab it. One bang, two screams from the women behind me. He lay still. Gun still smoking in his hand, the crewman opened his mouth to say something but not before Jacob punched him straight in the face knocking him unconscious. 

We didn’t have to look at him to know it. 

He was gone. 

We raced to the deck with not a moment to spare. 

“The boats are all gone!” 

“Not quite.” 

Mrs. Fitz bustled behind us and Andreea marched behind us. I smiled in relief. 

“Thank God.” 

Mrs. Fitz pulled me into a bear hug, “Lass, why aren’t ye on the boats? I ken ye were with yer ma.” 

Jamie shook his head, “No time to explain.” 

“What’s new, aye?” 

“Murtagh!” Jamie rushed forward as the man walked around the corner of the deck. 

Jamie’s guardian pulled him into a hug and patted… nay, beat… the lad on the back. 

“I thought ye were lost, Daddy-O!” 

Jamie ducked a swing from the man who was grinning ear to ear. 

“Cannae get rid of me that easy, lad. Come on, let’s get to the boats.” 

Our throng of six raced down the deck, I noted a tone of emergency in the air. Jamie’s hand wound tightly through mine as we looked out over the sea, ever growing higher around us. I jumped out of my skin when fireworks were launched behind us. A desperate cry for help, the red and white sparks flashed out high into the sky. 

We passed mostly men and crewmen, I noticed the little white bobbing matchboxes full of people, the lifeboats growing every farther from the ship. The ones we passed had people swimming to them like rats, clinging and trying to get in. To my horror, the lifeboats were trying to pull away so the remaining people on them wouldn’t drown as well. I grabbed Jamie’s hand tighter. 

“Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ.” 

My soul ached as we came closer to the remaining lifeboat. I noted the few final crew members waving guns around, pushing the oncomers back. 

“Women and children only! Where are the women and children!” 

My heart hit the deck as I clutched desperately at Jamie’s hand. 

“No, I can’t.” I turned around and my hands fluttered to his chest desperately, “I won’t. I can’t leave you.” 

“Ye must, Sassenach.” Jamie set his jaw and I noticed tears in his eyes in the glow of the fireworks that kept fucking shooting off. The bangs and loud claps of thunderous explosions made it hard to hear anything from him. 

Mrs. Fitz and Andreea climbed aboard with help from Murtagh, who turned back to me and Jamie. His dark eyes working out instantly what was going on. Behind Jamie, I saw men throwing wooden deck chairs overboard for those in the water to grab onto. 

“No!” I screamed, “No I won’t do it. Jamie you can’t make me leave you!” 

“Ye can and ye must, Sassenach.” Jamie clenched his jaw tightly until his square chin set in a line that was as firm as his lips. “Ye promised, Claire. I promised God Almighty I’d keep ye safe and I will.” 

Jamie picked me up and walked forward, I held onto his neck and buried my streaming eyes in his hair. My nose pricked from the intense emotions bubbling up inside me, the fear and desperation made me cling to him like ivy. My hands intertwined in his collar and hair as I grabbed on for all I was worth. 

“Listen to him, Claire.”

The familiarity of the voice in my ear made the goosebumps stand up on my neck. 

Frank. 

“Jamie is right. You must get on. Be a good girl now, do as he says.” 

I swallowed hard and glared at him. 

“Sassenach, please.”

“There’s another boat on the other side for the remaining men, I’ll see he gets on.” 

Frank’s dark eyes were cold and calculating. 

I didn’t trust his words, not after what I’d witnessed. 

Murtagh joined in, nodding to Jacob who was running to help the men throwing chairs overboard. 

“Aye, lass. Get in. We’ll be fine, ye ken.” 

I opened my mouth to protest. Jamie’s lips were firm and desperate against my own. He kissed me long and hard and when he pulled back quickly I realized I was already seated next to Mrs. Fitz next to Andreea and the lifeboat was being lowered. I stood up and opened my mouth to scream. 

“Come on, Claire. Sit down, honey. Ye need to come wi’ us now.” 

I looked up to the deck above as Frank, Murtagh and Jamie looked down on us. Jamie’s red curls were framed by the explosions of fireworks overhead and he tried to smile at me. My heart was racing. I couldn’t let him go. I just couldn’t. 

I didn’t hear what was said but I saw Frank turn to Jamie and whisper something into his ear, Jamie set his jaw again and nodded to me, trying to maintain his smirky grin for my own reassurance. 

There was no boat for the men. That loathsome bastard. 

Murtagh’s brows knit together as one as he looked at Frank in disdain. 

“No!” 

As we were lowered past the second deck, I took a giant leap into midair and hoped to God my hands would reach the railing. One slipped, but one grasped on. There was a collective scream from the lifeboat as Mrs. Fitz desperately tried to grab my feet with Andreea looking on in fear, her brown eyes wide with terror. 

A couple of the men on deck helped me over, “What’re you doing, girl? Are you mad?!” 

I didn’t answer. I ran. Coat flailing behind me, into the main dining area where I had met Jamie near the clock the time he met us all for dinner. Seemed so long ago now. 

The glass ceiling overhead would soon be underwater. My fingernails scraped the handrails as I ran, desperately trying to get upwards. Upwards to him. To Jamie. My love. I couldn’t go. I just couldn’t. 

Jamie met me at the clock, we collided into each other’s arms as I burst into sobs. I scrambled up his body, trying to hold onto him with all that I was. My hands were shaking and I was trembling. I knew I had just sealed my fate. 

Jamie’s voice was low and harsh in my ear, it broke as he cried as well, “God you’re so stupid Claire. Stupid, stupid. Stupid, Claire. Ye couldn’a just listen, lass.” 

“I couldn’t leave you.” 

My mouth was taken over by his desperate kisses, his stubble scraping my cheeks. 

“You jump, I jump, remember.” 

Jamie nodded and smiled, a tear falling down his cheek as he looked heavenward and cried out, his face suddenly twisted in fear. Pushing me behind him he yelled. 

“Sassenach!” 

A gunshot plummeted down and grazed the handrail. 

Frank’s face twisted in a purple rage as he ran down to join us, silver gun glinting in the flickering electric lights of the room. 

He raised his hand to shoot, now facing Jamie square on. I threw myself in front of him. 

“Move aside, Claire.” 

“No!” 

“Do it, or I’ll shoot you both. I really don’t care.” 

Jamie overpowered me and gripped my arms so tightly he must’ve left bruises. I winced as he forced me behind him again. 

“She’s mine, you bloody bastard. Mine. Do you hear me?” 

Jamie gritted his teeth, “I have a feeling myself and the Lord Almighty have a differing opinion here. She is my wife.” 

Frank laughed, the sound strange and foreign against the frightening cries and screams of the passengers around us, paying little attention to the scene as they scrambled to safety up on first class. 

There was a sickening crunch and groan of metal bending, a great wave of water tumbled in below us and I could hear screams echoing around us as it swept more passengers with it. Steadily rising in the giant room. 

Three things happened at once. 

One, Murtagh’s face could be seen over the railing and he yelled, “Lad!” as he threw something dark and hard down at us. 

Two, I caught the gun, it was no sooner in my hands that Jamie grabbed it and turned to face Frank. 

Three, there were two shots fired.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *laughs in cruel cliffhanger*


	20. Mo Chridhe Will Go On

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Character death(s) ? 
> 
> Get comfy! This is a long chapter. As always thanks to Crossworddreamer for letting me bounce ideas off her for this fic! In fact, she said "MOAR SAD" and "MAKE IT LONGER" jk but really, she did. So I did. And I cried. A lot.

Both men fell instantly… but only one fell over the railing and to the rising tidal wave below. 

Frank’s body hit the waves with a giant splash and did not move, instead a red cloud emanated from his head face-first into the dark water. 

Jamie fell, grabbing his arm. Thankfully the bullet only grazed his shoulder. 

“Run, lad!” 

Murtagh was by us in a second and, putting an arm around Jamie, he grabbed me by the wrist and dragged us up and out of there in an instant. 

We kept running, not looking backwards. I did not stop to think about Frank. What was done was done. I would not weep for that man. 

In a mad scramble, we made it to the stern of the ship. Proud and strong, the Titanic was now breaking in two. Murtagh guided us to the white rails and began looking around for something, anything to use as a lifeboat. He grabbed one deck chair, then two. 

Jamie and I rushed to help him. But it was no use. We had mere minutes at this point. 

Once, when I was a little girl, I lifted up a giant rock in our garden in Boston. Underneath, I disturbed a large ant colony. I watched in fascination as they ran for cover, helter-skelter carrying their large, fat baby pupas with them. 

The deck of the Titanic reminded me of this, but instead of ants it was full of human beings. Instead of white pupas, white lifejackets. It was only a matter of time before we were all submerged in the icy water. My teeth already shook in my head, my clothes wet around me from finding Jamie and then our scuffle with Frank in the ballroom. 

“It’s no use,” Jamie hissed between his teeth. “Our best bet is making a swim of it.” 

“Aye,” Murtagh spat darkly, wiping his mouth with a hand. 

“What?!” I asked incredulously. 

“When the ship goes under there’ll be a current pulling us under, Claire. I ken by the size of it. Our best bet is to swim for safety, no’ a raft.” 

The truth dawned on me. This was really it. 

Murtagh stood and opened his hands towards us. I took one and Jamie immediately took the other. 

“No’ a day goes by that I don’t think about yer mother, son. If she were here, she’d be so proud ye ken.” 

Jamie swallowed hard and nodded. I grabbed onto both of them and held them close. 

This wasn’t goodbye, it couldn’t be. 

“I’ll ‘no be saying my goodbyes here, Da. We’ll make it out, I swear.” 

Murtagh smiled, his dark eyes glowing like warm embers in the dim light of the stars. 

“Ye look just like yer Mam, Jamie. Especially when ye’ve got a mind to do something.” 

Murtagh squeezed my hand and I held it dearly. 

“No matter what comes, I’ll look after ‘ye. I made a vow and I’ll ‘no break it.” 

All this time, the string quartet behind us was playing a hymn. I recognized the music as “Nearer My God to Thee”. The sad refrains of the violins chilled my heart to its core. Nothing said human nature more than holding onto whatever art or beauty could withstand the storm of life. My heart broke for the men playing, desperately trying to brace us all for what was to come. 

Suddenly, the music stopped. 

As the Titanic went bow first into the sea, the great ship shuddered and cracked, severing the ship in two. We rocked forward with the movement and were suddenly free-falling with the ship as the stern broke free and fell into the sea causing a tidal wave of both water and people as it crashed down upon the surviving swimmers below. I clung to Jamie’s hand as he grabbed the stern railing. 

All the lights in the ship went out then, it was nearly pitch-black save for the stars overhead and the white life jackets gleaming off what little light we had from the icy heavens. 

The center and stern smokestacks broke off and bent the middle of the shop forward after the bow. We rose out of the sea like a great elevator of death tipping ever forward. Murtagh and Jamie both grabbed me and pulled me hard up and over the railing. Murtagh on one side of me, Jamie on the other. 

“Hold on, Lass. When the ship takes us down, ye swim for the top of the water, understand?” 

I nodded, too terrified to speak. The ship was rising steadily underneath us until we were at the vertices of it all, looking down on the deck as passengers slid and fell into the choppy waters below. 

“Claire.” Jamie’s hand gripped my own as we heard sickening thuds as people fell and hit the metal framework on the way down. Instantly killing many. 

“This was where we first met, remember?” I whispered. I felt Jamie’s exhale hot on my ear in a bitter laugh. 

“Aye, Sassenach. How could I ever forget. I loved ye then, ye ken that, right?” 

I nodded, my eyes filling with tears. 

“I did.” 

Jamie kissed the back of my head and breathed in my wild curls, “Mo Chridhe.” 

I closed my eyes tightly, trying to shut out the sights below. 

Jamie’s body was over me like a protective armor, pinning me to the rail beneath. He took no chances of me falling off or losing my grip. God he was heavy. 

Murtagh nodded at him and edged closer to secure his arm around mine as well. The three of us were pinned securely as we started to go down, ever faster. 

“Jesus H. Christ, Jamie!” 

“Remember I told ye of the lochs, Claire?” 

I nodded wordlessly. 

“It’ll take the breath outta ye if yer not prepared. Now take a deep breath when I say. When it pulls us under kick for the surface and keep kicking, Claire. Do not let go of my hand, no matter what!” 

  
  


“Christ Almighty.” Murtagh cried under his breath. 

As the sea rose to meet us in a giant, black mouth, foaming and frothing eager to swallow us whole, Jamie yelled out once more. 

“Now!” 

I gasped until my lungs could not hold any more air and prepared myself for the water to cut my skin like a thousand knives. 

One last glimpse of Jamie’s face and it went to black. I lost feeling within seconds and felt the undertow like Jamie had said. It was stronger than I imagined it could be. 

It was a struggle to hold my breath in as the cold water hit me. It was pure pain, I had an instant migraine that blacked out my vision although it was hard to tell under the water. I let my life jacket aid in finding which way was the surface as I kicked and fought my way up. 

My hands were numb, I couldn’t tell if Jamie was still holding me or not. I just swam and kicked for my life. 

My head broke the surface to the noises of screams and cries from other passengers. It was madness, the surface of the water was splashing to and fro and almost drowning me over again with the movements of those thrashing for help. 

I screamed for Jamie, Murtagh, but I did not see either of them. 

Struggling to stay afloat in the chaos, I choked on water as it was splashed and kicked into my face. Each droplet felt like a tiny dagger. 

“Jamie! Ja-”

A man grabbed hold of my head and in a struggle to stay afloat, he shoved me under. I screamed into the black water and felt the ice cold fear strike my heart as I fought him off. 

Suddenly, a hand grabbed me and pulled me up. I gasped in a shaky breath of air. 

“Get off her!” 

Jamie growled and with a guttural groan, he punched the man in the face. 

“Jamie, thank God.” 

“I’m here, Mo Chridhe.” 

Jamie struggled to tread water as he pulled me with him farther away from the throng of people in hysterics. 

“Murtagh?” 

Jamie’s face fell, “I dinnae ken, Sassenach. Did ye see him?” 

I shook my head, “No I didn’t.” 

Jamie’s face darkened and he cursed in Gaelic. 

“Sassenach, I must get ye safe. Follow me.” 

Jamie and I swam for a while until we were no longer in danger of being pulled under by throngs of people clamoring for safety. 

“Here. Give me your hand, Claire.” 

It was calming just for him to be there with me. The pain was unbearable and I could barely feel his hand in mine as he pulled me with all his might up onto a piece of floating wood that turned out to be the shards of one of the doors from the dining room. 

I clung to the wood and the night air bit at my skin, still, it was a welcome break from being submerged in the icy Atlantic. 

Jamie swam up to the end of the door and before he attempted to get on as well, he thought better of it. 

“Jamie, what are you waiting for?” 

“I cannae do it, Sassenach, not while Murtagh might be dying out there.” 

“N-no, get on.” My teeth were shaking so hard I was surprised the door wasn’t rattling beneath my shaking body. 

Jamie shook his head and kissed me hard, his own lips blue and frozen against mine.

Our breath mingled in a cloud of vapour. 

“I should g-go with y-you…” I was so cold I could barely speak. 

“No, Claire. I’ll see ye safe, let me go back. I promise I’ll be back, ye ken?” 

I could see the determined fire in his eyes and nodded at last. There would be no stopping him. 

“I’ll be fine, Mo Nighean Donn. I’m a survivor, I’ll make it back to ye I promise.” 

Jamie smiled, “My wife.” 

“Come b-back to me James Fraser,” I said weakly. “My husband.” 

The words made Jamie’s face crease into a wide grin. 

“Aye, Mo Chridhe. I’ll be back soon.” 

And with that he was gone, I watched his strong shoulders cut through the water as he expertly swam away. 

  
  
  


…………………………………………………………………….

  
  
  


Echoes in the bone.

As my body froze over, the screams faded away. 

Into blackness. 

Nothingness. 

My body gave up trying to keep itself warm, my soul did not. 

I looked up at the vast night sky for what must have been hours, hearing the gentle lull of the ocean crash against the door. 

Each icy breath greeted into a cloud of vapour as a signal of life. 

I was here. 

He was not. 

Jamie never returned. 

I sang to myself, my voice cracking with the effort. 

I could barely whisper. 

As I sang, a lone tear trickled out of my eye and into my hair, now a frozen mess of frost and saltwater. 

_ Come Josephine in my flying machine  _

_ And it’s up she goes,  _

_ Up she goes.  _

_ Balance yourself like a bird on a beam  _

_ In the air she goes  _

_ There she goes _

_ Up, up, a little bit higher _

_ Oh my, the moon is on fire……. _

I slipped into blackness, it welcomed me like a mother and held me in its velvet arms. 

…………………………………………………..

I had died, I knew it. 

There was no other explanation for the sudden warmth I felt, nor the lights that were streaming into my face. 

Instead I was pulled vaguely awake by my shoulders as someone harassed my body onto a lifeboat. 

“Keep her warm, cover her up.” 

“Yer safe now, love.” 

“We’ve got you.” 

“Shan’t be long now.” 

I tried to speak but could only croak. 

I needed to scream to yell, to tell them that he was coming back for me even though my heart knew it was not true. 

Something had happened. 

My Jamie did not return to me. 

And they were taking me away without him. 

…………………………………………………………………………………

On April 15th, I was saved by being unloaded onboard the R.M.S. Carpathia, which came to Titanic’s aid through the ice fields. 

I don’t remember much of the journey at all, save sitting in one spot for most of the three days in the overcrowded deck. Wind in my face I looked with haunted eyes at the others. I had time to take it in but no one had heard of James Fraser, nor seen the likes of the redheaded 6’3” Scot 

I wept openly the first two days, unmoving. 

I had no family to belong to, no husband to call my own, as far as I knew he had gone down. 

Down to the depths of the sea with the Titanic and those remaining in it. 

My heart, _ Mo Chridhe _ , he called me. 

I cursed that it beat on while my very soul seemed to have gone. 

Each beat was a desperate pain, a sharp cut that was never-ending. 

Each breath was laborious when you didn’t want to live. 

How could I go on? 

And yet, I did. 

Human frailty was no match for the human spirit and somehow I breathed, my heart beat and I survived the greatest pain I’d never known. 

…………………………………………………………………...

  
  


When we got to New York, I was unloaded with the rest of the passengers. 

“Name?” 

“I’m sorry?” 

I hesitated and bought myself a precious second in front of the man with the pen and notepad. 

“Claire.” 

“Surname?” 

“Fraser. Claire Fraser.” 

The man nodded and wrote down my new name. 

I clutched the scratchy wool of the blanket they gave me for shock and walked away into my new identity. 

……………………………………………………….

  
  


I retreated into a shell of myself. 

For weeks, months even. 

I lost track of the days and the nights. 

They all rolled into one. 

Life without Jamie was no life at all and I clung wildly to the promise that he was alive. 

That he would find me. 

I tried to find him, too. 

I spent my days walking the streets of New York, giving his name out at soup kitchens and halfway houses. 

I lived on the support of a church, The Holy Cross, in Queens. 

Each night I would lay my head on a hard cot and think of where I could go the next day. 

Where I hadn’t gone before. 

No one had heard of him, no one knew his face or name. 

I was broken beyond repair, my heart shattered in two. 

“My child, you must live again.” 

Mother Hildegarde’s voice was thick with emotion as she begged me to eat my supper that night. 

“What is there to live for?” I looked away from her kind brown eyes and off at the statue of the mother Mary, mocking me with her solitude when I had none. 

“The love that you have lost, it is very hard. But would your love want you to live life in this fashion, my child? You must try.” 

I knew she was right. 

I slept without dreams mostly, save for one night. 

  
  


_ “I dinnae ken where to start but I’ll start small, probably do portraits on the pier at Coney Island. Ten cents each.”  _

I could see him. His square smile, turned up at one corner slightly more than the other. Those damn curls, sticking out from under his brown cap. The way his eyes curved upwards like a cat, and his ears stuck out just a little, glowing red with the light behind them as he looked down at me. He glowed in the magnificence of youth before experience stifled him. 

  
  


_ “Why can’t I be like you, Jamie? Just heading off whenever I feel like it. Say we’ll go there.” _

He had laughed then, a raucous sound to my ears. A loud jump-and-tumble of a noise that shook my soul until it glistened in the joy of the afterglow of the sound. 

__

_ “We’ll drink cheap beer, ride on the...what’s it called… ye ken… the roller coaster? Until we throw up.”  _

_ “I won’t throw up.”  _

_ “Oh, aye? Stomach of steel eh, Sassenach?”  _

_ “I’m made of pretty stern stuff, James Fraser.”  _

_ “Aye, I ken ye are, Sassenach. Kiss me. Before this ends.”  _

I looked at him in my dream, my heart shattered as I saw his hair as I had last seen it. Wet with ocean water and stuck to his forehead in dark rivulets. 

I kissed him then, softly and carefully so as not to wake. But I tasted the saltwater in my mouth and knew the taste was my own tears on my cheeks. 

Slowly, I felt myself coming awake again. 

I had one place I’d never been that I longed to go. 

If only to feel closer to him. 

…………………………………………….

Coney Island. 

I bought a balloon that day. 

A bright blue one. 

One to match my blue dress, I had washed and dried and fastened my pearls on my neck. 

He would like that. 

At least I hoped he would have. 

My eyes were red from crying as I set out from the church that day, Mother Hildegarde wished me well, “Have joy, my child!”

I waved at her as she called out after me into the street. 

Joy. 

What was joy anymore if but a pretense of a lack of suffering. 

I was surrounded by absolute magic and I felt none of it. The roller coasters, the bright balloons. Children running by whacking great hoops in play and eating candy. 

A beautiful summer day with the smell of the ocean on the wind. 

Suddenly, a shock of red hair caught my gaze. 

A man was sitting in a small chair with his back to me. 

My heart stopped. 

I couldn’t breathe, I felt as if I had a weight of lead on my chest as I stood still. He bent down to pick up a pencil he had dropped from his mouth and continued to work on the portrait of a little girl with red ribbons in her hair. 

I watched his nimble fingers sketch her features with amazing ability. 

I was drawn to his hands. 

My eyes couldn’t look away from them as he worked. 

I only knew one artist who worked in such a distinct manner, he stopped every few seconds to look over his paper and then he would return to the parchment, with great flicks of his hands adding tiny, intricate details. 

I felt as though my heart would burst and I wanted to run forwards but fear held me back. 

The man turned his head slightly and although he wore a faded blue cap, I saw he had a thick beard and his hair underneath was unkempt. 

If it weren’t for his skill or setup, I would have assumed him a vagabond. 

His clothes were too big and had definitely seemed better days, but he was clean. 

I waited with baited breath behind him, I had come closer, ever so much closer just to watch. 

The little girl saw the finished product and squealed in delight, she held out her hand and offered him two pennies and a piece of lime saltwater taffy. 

The man chuckled, the low, husky laugh made my stomach clench. 

“Why not? But next time, darlin’ it’s a dime. Run along now, yer mam will be waiting for ye.” 

The girl ran away and I edged up behind him. 

It took all that I had in me not to run to him, to look in his face to see whether it was really him or not. 

But I knew. 

I just knew. 

“Will ye be havin’ yer portrait done too?” 

The man looked back only at my feet and skirts before getting out another sheet of paper. 

“Well, best get on wi’ it.”

I smirked to myself over how gruff his voice was as he struggled to open the taffy and stuck it in his mouth, chewing thoughtfully. 

“Payment first, though if ye don’t mind. That’s a dime a piece.” 

He took off his cap and held it out to me. 

It was clear he was not expecting the weight of what I put in it. 

His mother’s pearls filled half of the cap and his hands shook as he saw them fall in. 

He dropped the hat as if it were on fire and almost fell off his chair. 

Somehow, I found my voice and whispered.

“Have you ever seen pearls like this before, they’re Scotch I’m told.” 

Jamie didn’t dare look up at me, not yet. His eyes were glued to the hat and his back stiffened as if someone had stuck an iron rod up his spine. 

“Aye….. my mother had some just like it. And then they belonged to….” 

“Yes?” 

“To my wife.” 

Jamie looked at me then, his blue eyes shining with tears as his voice caught in his throat. 

“ Gast' air fad!” 

I laughed then, oh he looked so different. So much older and as broken as I felt. 

He stood up so fast, his chair clattered to the ground as he held me close and I could feel the sobs wracking through his broad shoulders as he covered me. 

I cried into his hair and neck, letting his beard scratch my whole face in delight. 

“Oh God, Claire.” 

I laughed then, and did not stop, as he showered me with kisses. 

He was shaking. 

“Don’t be afraid,” I said softly. 

Jamie shook his head before bending it to kiss me deeply again, “There’s two of us now.” 

I kissed him under the summer sky as my blue balloon flew out of my hand and up into the stratosphere. 

Untethered and free, it soared high above us and matched the June sky. 

  
  
  
  
  


..........................................

El Fin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've never had a work feel so much like a labor of love as this one. It means so, so much to me and to get it out in story-form is honestly a privilege and honor. I hope you appreciated the alternate ending as much as I did. I hope you cried and laughed and felt the gamut of human emotion that comes with such an epic tale. 
> 
> Thank you to each and every one of you for coming along with me for the ride! Your comments have meant so much to me over the course of this story and I have so enjoyed getting to talk to each of you. Feel free to reach out to me whenever! I'm on Tumblr and Twitter as CourageousJS! 
> 
> Much love xx


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